


Love Me in Whatever Way

by seaofolives



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, Demon & Human Interactions, Demon/Human Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gang Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Incubus Ignis Scientia, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Alternating, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Suicide, Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaofolives/pseuds/seaofolives
Summary: Ignis Scientia has sold his soul and chances for a rebirth for the privilege of spending the rest of eternity as an incubus. For 400 years, he has not found reason to complain but his next mark, Gladiolus Amicitia, is set to change that.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 20
Kudos: 36
Collections: FFXV Halloween Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. you ever write smth you have no idea why you're still writing but you're already in the middle of it and you'll feel kinda stupid just abandoning it? yeah. this is like that
> 
> 2\. this is actually not sex heavy (and none of the sex scenes are written graphically) but for its heavy themes (lots of mentions of non-con, suicide and death), it's an instant explicit rating for me
> 
> 3\. this is my first time writing ardyn btw so expect the imperfect lmao 
> 
> 4\. actually the world and situations of the characters are so different from the canon that even their characterizations have been affected so consider this a blanket ooc warning 
> 
> 5\. written for ffxv halloween week 2020! using the day 6 prompts:
> 
> Monster of the day: Demons & Daemons  
> Theme: Starscourge  
> Scenario: Forming a contract  
> Mod's choice: Psychological Thriller  
> NSFW: Incubus/Succubus
> 
> but bc this is me, it got rly long so i'm posting one chapter per day lol
> 
> 6\. notes and tags to be added where needed/requested
> 
> 7\. happy birthday, prompto!

The steady, urgent beat of those complicated machines, the rising tension among the actors and the witnesses who both demanded and wept as they hunched over the bed, or injected fluids into the IV strip or smashed their fingers onto the screens. And then at long last, the singular flat note of the end as the person in a white coat would look at their watch and state: “Confirmed. Time of death…” 

And then wailing—much wailing, as if the person that had died hadnʼt committed any sinful acts in her life. Where normal human beings would have popping champagne bottles, wild hooting and cheering and loud music to celebrate the end of a job, this would be the sound of his after-party. His own kind of loud music, his own kind of release. 

A vast improvement from when he started on this work some 400 years ago, when the death of a person was normally only just the quiet diagnosis, the extensive waiting, the fervent prayers and then the silent pronouncement that triggered the flood of tears. The end of a job in those days was almost akin to the labor of a birthing mother. These days, at least, everyone was so desperate to live, they put together all these machines and sciences to make the last day of his assignment so much more exciting—will they win? Will _he_ win? So on and so forth. 

He bought out his phone and took a final picture of his victim—ashen and thin like a sack of bones, her once lustrous hair now a thin mat of grayed locks—before they covered her death face with the quilt. As for her weeping relatives and the nurses packing up themselves, he left them to their own devices. 

Turned towards the exit of the ward where he caught sight of another familiar face from some 300 years back. He stood in an all-black garb reminiscent of what human kids these days might call ‘fashionableʼ. 

He smirked at him, bowed in greeting when those gray-blue eyes finally saw him, and said, “All yours.” 

“Shouldʼve known it was you, Ignis,” he sighed. 

A sentence that delighted him and caused him to smile brighter at the morose character. “Have I become like a serial killer who leaves his marks on his victimsʼ corpses?” 

“Mark? Nah,” his severe friend replied, fussing a little with his styled fringes, “but youʼre the only incubus we know in this region who targets humans with mortal sins. When she fell under our radar, we figured you probably had something to do with it.” 

“All daemons are created to punish the sinful, Noct.” 

“Yeah, fair,” Noctis agreed with a little shrug. “Havenʼt seen you targeting a corrupt politician, though. Itʼs always the murderers, the rapists, the abusers who get away with it. In other words,” he flicked a pointing finger at him, “thatʼs your brand.” 

“Well, thereʼs too many of them existing in this quarter, I never run out of work.” Ignis shrugged. “Itʼs simply the most logical career path for a daemon in my paygrade.”

“Paygrade?” Noctis cocked a brow. “You guys get _paid_? What the hell are you even going to use the money for? Condoms?” 

“Itʼs a metaphor, Noct,” Ignis explained flatly, stepping aside to let a gurney pass. “Unlike you grim reapers, we daemons used to be mortal humans who used to enjoy some form of financial compensation. Also,” he nodded to his latest victim being transferred from her deathbed, “I believe thatʼs you.” 

“Oh shit, yeah.” Noctis straightened up. “Hey, listen, you got time—?” 

“Iʼm afraid I donʼt.” Ignis passed him, sweeping his hand to the floor to summon out a yawning portal, purple smoke and fiery embers rising off the black pool. He stepped into it and climbed the stairway down to hell. 

“Then after your reports—” 

“Goodbye, Noct.” Ignis waved to him without looking. It was a steep climb down and even a daemon like him whoʼd been around for centuries needed to see where he was going, or risk falling on his face and reentering Inferno in embarrassment. Once upon a time, he used to have mixed feelings about such thoughts, or the trip south as a whole. 

These days, he wouldnʼt even flinch when he stepped through the smoke to a chorus of screams and harrowed prayers, begging for mercy, salvation, and whatever else came in-between. This was the music of the cavern they came to know as the ‘main lobbyʼ, warm red like the rest of the cave, spiraling upwards like an overturned screw. There were as many rooms as there were punishable souls, and the workshift here was 24/7. Luckily for him, he didnʼt have to be imprisoned here for too long, although that was because he took a rather expensive shortcut out of it. 

“Mr. Scientia?” 

Towards the end of the wall, flanked by both entrances to the lift was the front desk that was pretty much just a slab of glowing rock, a welcome sign and the lamia who stood (“stood”? Do snakes stand?) behind it. 

“Welcome back,” she greeted him upon his approach, tiny fangs peeking through her little smile. She slid a crystal bowl towards him from where he took a coffee candy in the mix. “How was the job?” 

“As well as one might expect,” he answered evenly, taking another candy to pocket. “The Astral Plane should be taking care of her by now. You are the replacement receptionist?” 

“Only for a little while, until Lilith comes back from her maternity leave,” she replied, voice quiet and polite though audible in the midst of the songs of torture that surrounded her. “Anyway, His Accursedness Lord Adagium is calling for you.” Ah. Why else would the front desk draw his attention?

“Iʼll be sure to drop by his office, then,” Ignis said. He tipped his head to her and took his leave. 

Rode up the elevator to a massive cavern full of desks and the sound of keyboards clicking that served as _his_ own office—though the only thing he owned there was a single cubicle somewhere near the center aisle which he rarely even used. Mostly, he was just there to get some reports out of the way, a necessary evil of his work as a daemon. 

He would be off again as soon as he had completed the documents, taking the lift this time to the highest and biggest hall in all of Inferno. A dark throne room with rotting banners, dead chandeliers and towering paperwork where there would have stood sentries in suits of armor. 

“You wanted to see me, Ardyn?” 

And there, across the carpet, sat the lord of all daemons, black lines trailing down his eyes and mouth, in his lofty seat behind his majestic desk, weighed down by its own set of paperwork. _Bureaucracy_ , after all, was just another word for _hell_. 

“ _Ar-dyn?_ ” he repeated in his own sing-song voice, a wide smile splitting his face at the tone. “What happened to _Lord Adagium_?” 

“Please, weʼve had this conversation for the past 300 years or so.” Ignis approached his master. 

“You know what you call an old joke?” Ardyn reached for the folder he carried and sat back in his throne to flip it open. “Itʼs hell.” 

“How ironic because youʼve told that same joke to me about a thousand times by now.” Ignis pushed his glasses back. 

“Unnerving, isnʼt it?” Ardyn laughed deeply. “Well,” he raised it to his left tower of documents and dropped it on the top, “put it on the books. Another job well done, Ignis.”

“Do you even still have any plans to do something about that ridiculous backlog of yours?” Ignis nodded to the pile which his report had just now crowned. 

“You know whatʼs another old joke?” Ardyn flipped through the lesser stacks of files on his inner desk. “The phrase _if I have time._ Youʼd think a man whoʼs been around for millennia would have found a solution to it by now, but the dark forces just wonʼt take a coffee break.” 

“I wonder why?” Ignis popped his brow at the lord of said dark forces. 

Ardyn giggled. “Just another one of lifeʼs unsolvable mysteries. Anywhooos…!” The last word sang out. Finally, he extracted a thin folder and handed it to Ignis who adjusted his glasses again before he flipped through it. “Riddle me this, Ignis:” He perched his elbows on his desk, wearing his hand on his fist. “Why do you still wear glasses when a, your daemon form has perfect eyesight and b, your daemon eyes look blind?” 

“Why do you wear a funny hat and that ridiculous coat when you donʼt emit miasma here in Inferno?” Ignis retorted, inspecting the back pages of the file he held. 

Ardyn shrugged, then pointed a finger gun to him. “Touché. Iʼll give you that.” 

Ignis showed him the front page, bearing a summarized profile of a person. No pictures, all text. Appearances were such fickle things, after all. “What is this?”

“Hm?” Ardyn blinked, making a point to make it obvious, before he spread his hands towards Ignis. “Itʼs a job order.” 

“Of a man whose worst and only crime is,” Ignis read the exact lines from the paper, “ _crashed onto a police car that is parked illegally in a handicap space._ ” 

Ardyn raised his palms high for another shrug. “Violence!” 

The folder met Ignisʼ thigh with a slap. “Please tell me youʼre not serious.”

“Ahhh, my dear Ignis,” Ardyn sighed, pushing himself up to his feet. “I know what you are going to say—for 200 years—” 

“ _Four_ -hundred years.”

“—you have committed yourself fully—” Ardyn cut himself off to cast round eyes at Ignis in astonishment. “Four-hundred years? My, how time truly flies.” 

“Neither of which is the point,” Ignis exhaled heavily. “Just now, you have given me a woman who drowned her own son for a chance to an affair—”

“Ignis, Ignis,” Ardyn sighed dramatically, standing next to him to take the file from his hand, look at it closely with his subordinate. “For 400 years, you have committed yourself fully to the work I have given you, as payment for the powers I have granted you. Donʼt you think itʼs time you stepped up from your comfort zone?” In other words, a challenge. And a chance for a great reward. 

Ignis popped his brow at his master. “Iʼm listening.”

“Now heʼs listening,” Ardyn chuckled. “Then you would do well to remember what Iʼll tell you now: what time forgets, the blood does not. Take a look at his name. Does it not ring a bell?” 

“Amicitia?” Ignis repeated, echoed the name in his head. 

Sighed. “I do not even remember when or where I was born.” 

Ardyn smiled brightly despite that. “Well, never mind. Youʼll get to spend time enough with him to find out, anyway. That is—if you are taking the job.” He looked at him closely for that last sentence. Taunting him. 

So Ignis snatched the folder from him. “When have I ever turned down an assignment, Your Accursedness Lord Adagium?”

—

As much as he would have wanted to get started on his new assignment (Amacitia? Amiticia?), now was not a good time for him. Daylight had come to the world of men and miasmalysis was such a bitch to deal with. What to do, until then? Go back to his office and pretend to be interested in more red tape? Sleep? That is, pretend to sleep, as if daemons needed sleep…

Or meet with a friend—while trying not to burn and die when that terrible light ripped through the air of the main lobby, echoing with a chorus of Messengers promising retribution against they who tormented mortal men. White became the color of his fear, the wails and howls of the tortured and their tormentors its soundtrack. Ignis stood frozen, basking and gaping at the astral glow. 

“Ignis!” It summoned him, striking horror in his heart. “Hey, Ignis, over here!” 

It would be a while before the tears would dry from his eyes, and the light would clear up to show a normal afternoon scene of a cafe by a side street—white seats, checkered tablecloths, his acquaintance in black waving him over. 

“You got time now?” Noctis asked, putting down his arm. “Cʼmon, letʼs eat!” 

Ignis huffed. As it would turn out, he did. 

“You donʼt have to keep looking at your reflection, okay? Youʼre under my protection so no oneʼs gonna see your true form.” 

Fifteen minutes later, he would be sitting across the young grim reaper inspecting the menu, keeping an eye on his image on the clear wall of the coffee shop, just in case those green eyes would suddenly turn to pearls and that flawless skin would rip itself to reveal his burn scar. The air around him was clear, thus far, of his miasma. 

“So, whatʼre you ordering?” 

Ignis turned to Noctis. “Do you even have money?” 

“Funny youʼre asking me that when Iʼm cloaking us,” was Noctisʼ answer, inspecting the backside of the narrow strip of menu. “No oneʼs gonna notice us until I tell them to. I thought you daemons have this power, too?” 

“I thought you read the Treaty of the Cosmos?”

“The what of the what now?” Noctis looked up to his friend of the hour. 

Ignis snorted. “ _As for the daemons,_ ” he began to recite, “ _born of shadows and the illness of hearts, they will inherit the darkness and make it their power and dominion._ ” 

“Huh?” 

“That was a direct quote, Noct,” Ignis explained. “Meaning that our powers work only under the conditions of darkness. Come now, how will you become High Commander of the grim reapers if you donʼt even know the text?” he sighed. 

“Ugh, seriously? Youʼre starting to sound like everyone from my dadʼs council.” Noctis scratched his ear. “Anyway, I didnʼt call you up here for a lecture. What are you having? I wanna order high tea.” 

“You mean you want their cakes and sandwiches and need someone to finish the rest of the plates you donʼt like,” Ignis snorted, taking his menu. “Order the Royal Set, then,” he decided, tossing the list back to the table. 

Noctis left him with the jams and the scones, half the sandwiches (the ones that looked green) and exactly one variety of cake. They were served floral green tea with it, with dried up buds that blossomed in the hot water. 

“So,” Ignis began suddenly, raising a cup to his lips while Noctis was removing the lettuce from his sandwich. A funny thing to do, he thought—then again, eating as immortal beings was a strange affair, in and of itself. All one got was the taste and the motions without the filling satisfaction, which was only half the experience. “What of the woman? Will she be joining us downstairs anytime soon?” 

“Oh,” Noctis snorted, biting into his little sandwich. “Sheʼs still in the holding room. Of all the victims you could kill, whyʼd you have to look for a lawyer?” 

“To my defense, I had no reason to know what she did.” Ignis popped a brow. “She could have been a beggar and yet I would still have happily taken her _and_ her life force as long as she was a willing partner.” 

“Wow, TMI much?” Noctis stuffed his face full of strawberry shortcake. “Not everyone lives on sex as much as you do.” 

“My apologies,” Ignis smirked. “Because of my good looks, you seem to have forgotten that youʼre speaking with an incubus.” He chuckled when Noctis rolled his eyes. “Anyhow, what seems to be the hold up? Does she deny that she murdered her child?” 

“No, but sheʼs putting up arguments that sheʼs reached the point of her life where she could no longer support the kid so she decided to just end it rather than let it get ruined.” Noctis scratched his head in frustration. 

“Oh, please,” Ignis scoffed, putting down his cup of tea. “She cut him off so she could live a good life with another man!” 

“Who she says her kid doesnʼt get along with. So itʼs like, is she gonna ruin both their lives or end just one? Itʼs driving Monica mad,” Noctis laughed. The joy of a man who had passed off his problem to someone else. “Anyway, the marshal says we should just look for the kid but since heʼs already been reincarnated, it wonʼt be easy.” 

“The child,” Ignis sighed, “is a minor. His soul wasnʼt allowed to reach the proper age of consent before it was reincarnated.” 

“Itʼs not up to us, I guess.” Noctis shrugged. “If he forgives his mom or tells us that he didnʼt mind dying, anyway, weʼve got no choice but to reincarnate her.” 

“Come now, as if thereʼs a shortage of souls,” Ignis huffed, splitting a scone to spread some orange marmalade on it. 

“As _if_ thereʼs a shortage of daemons!” Noctis rebutted. He gestured his tea cup to him as he raised it. “You would have been reincarnated maybe 7 times by now if you didnʼt choose to live as an incubus.” He slurped from the rim noisily. “Donʼt you guys have a chance to choose again after like, a certain number of centuries or something?” 

“You speak as if weʼre under probation,” Ignis laughed mirthlessly. “Perhaps for those unwilling to serve Adagium, their weakened souls will be released after centuries of suffering to be reborn into a flower, but I chose to live the rest of my immortal years more meaningfully than a plant.” 

“Yeah but it only takes a few cycles for that flower to become human again,” Noctis argued. “Sure you might end up being a voretooth but youʼve got a better shot at mortal life that way. Donʼt you wanna be human again? To live happily like everyone else? I mean _really_ happily ‘cause you know, everythingʼs temporary.” 

A concept which made Ignis frown darkly, flashes of dark rooms, burning torches, wicked grins and grabbing hands flashing in his head. “I did not live a happy life as a mortal. Why should I come back to that kind of living?” 

“Not everyone did,” Noctis said. He pointed past Ignisʼ shoulder with his sandwich. “Bet he didnʼt, but look at him.” _He_ was a large man sitting alone in his table, a sprawling tattoo along his back and arms, reading a book with yellowed papers, a plain scone in his hand. “If that isnʼt the image of contentment, I dunno what it is. I mean, when was the last time you just sat somewhere nice to waste time and call it a day?” 

When? Perhaps in some other previous life Ignis could no longer recall. And yet he couldnʼt keep his gaze away from the man who stared closely at his book, devoured his scone, wiped his hand on his tank top then opened up a black notebook to copy whatever it was he read on the book. Here was a man with a simple agenda, ignorant of his surroundings, of the evil that lurked among him… 

“They say ignorance is bliss,” Ignis said, still watching the man. He dropped his pen, picked up his phone from the glass table then looked around. He waved to someone yet unseen. “I tried, Noct. I tried to live as ignorantly as I could and for that, I was punished severely.” 

A woman appeared, then. Skinny, cheerful, perhaps 5-10 years his junior. She wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss his cheek then he pulled her to his lap to smother hers. A younger girlfriend? Was she not a minor? Disgusting. 

There was nothing worth saving amongst these mortals. “Whatʼs got you asking that question?” Ignis drained his cup and refilled it. 

“Obviously ‘cause I wanna know how it feels like to be a human kid, yʼknow?” Noctis answered. “Iʼll probably pass off as someone in his 20s. You look pretty young yourself! Wanna do it? I could keep you safe with my glamor—” 

“Thank you for the offer but I resent being called young.” Ignis smacked his teacup angrily on its dainty plate and rose. “Youth is nothing but a death sentence. The world will promise you a bright future and then punish you for hoping.” He bowed to his friend. “Have a good rest of the day, Noct. Iʼm afraid Iʼve got another assignment I must prepare for.” 

“Hey, Ignis…” 

But Ignis called forth his portal and started the descent. Halfway past it, he heard a burst of laughter, turned around to see the large man beaming at his younger companion brimming with excitement. Amber eyes sparkling, a warm glow in his cheeks. Pure happiness. 

Oh, to laugh again at the simplest of things… 

_Disgusting,_ he jeered at himself. Just because a man could experience the simplest of joys did not make him pure of heart. Ignis turned back to his path and sealed the portal.

—

It didnʼt take him much longer until day turned into night; what could be hours for mortal men was mere minutes among their patient daemons, after all.

His mark lived in a comfortable detached unit in a quiet neighborhood nearly an hour away from the city center. In his human form, in a smart blazer, shirt and slacks, he waited for his appearance under the shadows of the trees of the park just across. 

The man arrived in an old red car, the kind that must have been fashionable 5 years ago. He swung his jacket over his shoulder, leaned down and waved goodbye to his friends. Ignis almost jumped when he recognized the inked drawing on his arms and shoulders. 

“Bye, Gladdy!” a young female voice said. 

“Donʼt forget tomorrow, okay, Gladio?!” a young man followed. 

Gladdy, Gladio…Gladiolus Amiticia? Amacitia? 

Ignis looked at the file again, confirmed his name and address. He knew it—no mortal man, no matter how handsome or contented they looked, was innocent. 

He put on a smirk. So this was the challenge Adagium was telling him. Did they think they could hide a heinous crime from him? No—not him, of all daemons. 

This manʼs life would be his before long.


	2. Chapter 2

When that gods-awful alarm tone—which was basically a duck-ified version of his sister saying, _Gladdy!!_ on loop—didnʼt work, he should have known that a call coming from the young lady herself was going to do it. 

He groaned into his pillow, tried to wait it out but his pesky little sibling had changed her special ringing tone into one of those boy bands from Niflheim and he, unfortunately, hadnʼt yet found out (didnʼt know, actually) (but he wouldnʼt be caught dead admitting that) how to change it back. So now, he was having to deal with crashing drumbeats of a manic pop song, their auto-tuned voices (as far as he remembered, there were 9 members in the group…) and the fact that this was going to be stuck with him for the whole day again. 

A heavy arm came through from the cavern of his thick blanket. The song finally stopped, but only briefly. 

When it came on again, he finally managed to rake his phone off his nightstand and answer the call, slapping it to his cheek. “Mrrnʼng,” he mumbled. 

“ _Gladio Amicitiaaa!!_ ” the woman at the other end screeched at him. “ _Seriously, did you just wake up?! Itʼs literally already 11 oʼclock! You didnʼt forget about our date with Dad, right?!_ ” 

“Yeah, no, I didnʼt,” Gladio groaned, rubbing his fingertips over his eye and then flicking off the crusty goop. “Cʼmon, Iris, I had a wrap party last night. I got home at like…2 in the morning.” 

“ _What time did you sleep?_ ” 

“Around…3, I think?” He threw himself to his back, nearly dropping his phone in the process. Iris sighed dramatically over at the other line. “Hey, it ainʼt my fault I still have a thesis to finish!” 

“ _Iris,_ ” a distant woman called through the phone, “ _is that Gladiolus?_ ” 

Slightly muffled, Iris replied, “ _Yes, Mama. Heʼs already getting ready._ ” Back to him, she whispered loudly, “ _Did you hear that?_ ” 

“Am not yet getting ready,” he stated as a matter of fact. 

“ _Youʼll get ready soon, though!_ ” Iris insisted. “ _Anyway, we still have to pick up the flowers for Dad so we gotta go now. See you!_ ” 

“Yeah,” Gladio said, scratching at the ink on his chest. “See ya. Drive safe.” 

After that, he had no choice but to get up and go. Pick up last nightʼs clothes from the floor, wash up, shave, drink some milk from the carton just to get his daily vitamins in. 

And then he was out the door, slipping his arm through his leather jacket on his way to the bus stop. His phone rang just as the last bus rolled out; his would be coming in 4 minutes, the timetable at the waiting shed said. 

“ _Hi, did I wake you?_ ” 

“Hey, Holly,” Gladio greeted her back, keeping his eye on the left corner where the bus would be turning. “Nah, Iʼm actually at the bus stop. Whatʼs up?” 

“ _Nothing urgent. I just wanna thank you for stepping up last night when Milton was harassing our intern. Everyone knows he can be a huge jerk but no one does anything about it ‘cause heʼs famous. So, I want to apologize for what happened, too. Being the executive producer, I should have all my staff and cast in line._ ” 

“Milton was drunk, though,” Gladio reminded her. “There was no way you could have controlled him that way.” 

“ _Still, itʼs out of line for him to call you something derogatory just ‘cause youʼre NGSB._ ” 

Gladio snickered at her response. “Donʼt worry too much about me, itʼs nothing I havenʼt heard before. I may be named after a flower but I ainʼt no dainty flower.” 

“ _I donʼt know if itʼs right to say this but Iʼm glad to hear that,_ ” Holly replied. “ _By the way, remember this script I was telling you about last night? I spoke with the director just this morning and sheʼs happy to have you onboard as fight coordinator,_ ” Gladio pumped his fist, “ _so if youʼre free, we can have lunch tomorrow at Maagho._ ” 

“Sure, Iʼll be there.” Gladio grinned. “Thanks for vouching for me, Holly.” 

“ _Well, you never let me down, Gladio. Iʼll see you tomorrow._ ” 

His bus ride arrived soon enough, after which he took the train, transferred to another one, then walked five minutes to the Guardian Memorial Park, stopping by a nearby flower shop to buy his own basket. 

“Papa, look whoʼs finally here!” 

Gladio had to scratch his head when he arrived last at the tomb, making sure to bow to the door before he set down his basket of flowers at its foot. “Sorry for being late, Dad. Stayed up so I could chip at the thesis you left me.” 

“Iʼm sure Clarus would understand,” the blonde woman standing behind Iris, shorter than his shoulders, reached up to nudge him down with her gloved hand so they could kiss their cheeks together. “Itʼs good to see you again, Gladiolus.” 

“You, too, Mom,” Gladio said. He gestured to her hands while he bent down to catch his sister, who jumped into his arms, so he could squeeze her back. “Got a shoot later?” 

His mother waved her covered hands. “For a chocolate ad. We were supposed to do it this morning but I asked them to push the schedule so I could come out here with Iris. Youʼre having lunch with us, of course? Iris made a reservation in Clarusʼ favorite Gralean restaurant.” 

“Ooh, that sounds good.” Gladio beamed at his sister who was hanging onto his arm, looking up to him with doll eyes. “Then I guess Iʼm free, all right.” 

They stayed on for a few more moments with the late Clarus Amicitia, filling it with prayers. After lunch, Iris and their mother dropped him off at the national library where he spent the rest of his afternoon trawling through preserved serials dating hundreds of years back until he received a text from his friend, inviting him to coffee. 

So by late afternoon, he would be sitting on a table by the side street cafe, eating scones and drinking hot chocolate with a new book from the library to keep him company. Time and again, he went back to his black notebook to take down some notes. 

Until Iris came, having literally welcomed herself to the party after she asked him what he was doing and who he was meeting with. 

“Ugh, Gladdy, you have crumbs on your lips!” Iris pulled herself up from his lap and deposited herself on the seat next to his, taking a tissue from the plain dispenser to wipe her cheek. Then she welcomed herself to a scone, broke it in two so she could lather the exposed part with strawberry jam. 

“Iris…” Gladio clicked his tongue, watching her bite into the pastry with a warning look. 

Iris took the time to wipe off the excess jam from her lips before she muffled out a, “Wha?” Someone dropped by to offer her a menu which she took with a nod of thanks. “Gladdy, not all jams have fructose! I canʼt avoid them all just ‘cause I get diarrhea sometimes, right?” 

“Funny you forgot about that watermelon fruit shake you ordered for lunch.” 

Iris raised her hand to stop him while she consumed the rest of her half-scone. “Iʼll be fine, Gladdy. I got this. Anyway, whatʼs good here?” She scanned one side of the menu. “Oooh, they have high tea! Gladdy, do you wanna share?” 

“If itʼll stop ya from eating fructose.” Picking up the last scone on his plate, Gladio broke it in half and devoured one part plain. “Order whateverʼs good for three.”

“Thatʼs the Royal Set, then.” Iris waved to a waitress with the menu for extra height. In the meantime, Gladio opened up his book and flipped through the pages heʼd marked with multi-colored post-its. “Hi, could we get the Royal Set, please?” she ordered quietly. “Weʼll take Tenebrae Blossoms for the tea and…a Classic Warm Chocolate.” 

Gladio smirked at that, eyes still on his book. “I knew you wouldnʼt be able to resist that,” he said, as soon as the waitress had taken her order and the menu with it. 

“Dark chocolate is queen, okay?” Iris remarked. She took the last part of the scone and laid some butter onto it. “By the way, speaking of chocolates, guess who forgot about Talcottʼs birthday again.” 

He whipped to her. “Jared?” Iris hadnʼt confirmed it yet but he had already cracked wide open with laughter. “How many times is this now?” 

Iris raised three fingers. “Third strike.” 

“Poor kid!” 

She shook her head, waved her hand. “But actually, heʼs really sweet about it?” 

“Uh-huh?” Gladio nodded, his cheeks still anchored to his smile. 

“When Jared told him that he forgot to bake him his chocolate cake, he straight up just asked to make it with him.” Iris pumped her shoulders high. “Like seriously, heʼs what—7?” 

“Kids learn fast, they say,” Gladio chuckled, picking up his mug of hot chocolate to sip from it. When a familiar face came around the corner, he raised his hand to mark his place. “But yeah, thatʼs real mature of him. Prompto!” 

His blonde friend whipped his head first the other way, and then his. Then he bounced and waved and jogged to the table. 

Tripped at another tableʼs spare chair which he pushed back with apologetic bows, though the man in black seemed only to smile in bemusement and nod his forgiveness.

“Hey, be careful next time,” Gladio muttered to him when Prompto finally, literally, fell onto the seat across him. “You couldʼve seriously harmed yourself back there. These glass tables are no joke.”

“Got excited,” was Promptoʼs only explanation before he presented two black pamphlets—glossy, folded once like a paper book— to his friends. “Ta-da!!” 

Iris gasped, then clapped her hands, bouncing in her seat before she received her pamphlet. “Is this it? Is this really it, Prompto?” 

“ _First Shot_ ,” Gladio smirked, reading the title off the front. “Fancy name.”

“Mm, but itʼs really symbolic, yʼknow?” Prompto said, pulling himself closer to the table edge to prop his elbows onto the surface. “Those are like, the first photos I published, and then this is my first shot at doing an exhibit on my own!” He let out a long hum, tossing his head to the side. “I really hope it doesnʼt flooop.” 

“Hey, knock it off.” Gladio reached forward to shake him on his shoulder, pulling back when their 3-plate tier of tea snacks had arrived. Iris immediately went for a cake. “Just ‘cause itʼs your first solo doesnʼt mean itʼll go bad!” 

“But thereʼs so much to do,” Prompto sighed, parking his chin and cheeks onto his hands. Iris slid him a cup of powder blue tea so he dragged the jar of honey closer to him. “I still have to get the pictures framed, I still have to look for food…hmmm, maybe I should just drop it altogether. Thereʼs a new drama thatʼll start shooting next month and they offered me a spot in their camera crew.” 

“Hire an events manager,” Gladio suggested, raising his teacup to his lips. “Donʼt they help with that kinda thing? Iʼm sure youʼve met a lot in your line of work.” 

“Yeah!” Iris turned her shoulders to the sulking Prompto. “Donʼt you guys often cover like…media launches? Press cons?” 

“Theyʼre expensive.” Prompto pressed a tight line to his face. 

“Then letʼs do a kickstarter,” Gladio suggested, turning to the beep of his phone to read the message. “Iʼll back up the campaign—shit.” His seat made an obnoxious scraping groan against the smooth concrete when he pushed it back and flew up to his feet. He grabbed his book, his pen, his notebook, his leather jacket hanging at the back of his seat… 

“Gladdy?” Iris watched him steal a sandwich from the plates. 

“My advisorʼs—Dadʼs advisorʼs asking to meet now, his appointment just got canceled.” He stuffed the sandwich in his mouth and stole another cake. 

“Hey, do you need a car—” 

Gladio waved his hand to Promptoʼs offer, waiting for a van to pass before he crossed the road, shoving the cake slice into his mouth as he went. 

He was in University of Insomnia in 20 minutes, trying not to appear too flustered as he climbed up the steps of the ancient building to the second floor, where his and his fatherʼs thesis advisor had his office. The man was already inside when he knocked onto his sliding door, looking at him behind dipping glasses, under a mat of peppery hair. 

He was done in pretty much the same amount of time, leaving the office together with him. “So uhh…thanks again for meeting with me. Iʼm probably more work than you signed up for but I really appreciate it.” 

“Nonsense, Gladiolus,” his advisor chuckled, patting him on his back. “Iʼm just as interested in you finishing this as you are committed to it. How are you enjoying it, though?” They started to walk to the stairwell. 

“Itʼs…” Gladio shrugged. “Interesting, I guess? Dadʼs always raised me to think of daemons as former humans instead of like…different creatures pretending to be humans but I didnʼt realize heʼd gotten lots of evidence about it. And Iʼm reading,” he pulled his book from his jacketʼs inner pocket to present it to his advisor, “ _Interlude with a Daemon_. You know, for the section about…human perception of daemons throughout the years.” 

His advisor nodded, looking impressed. “Good, now youʼre getting into it. By the way, Iʼm meeting with a colleague from the Accordo Paranormal Research Institute for dinner. Do you want to join us? She might have a thing or two to say about your and Clarusʼ thesis.” 

“Hey—yeah, sure!” Gladio nodded with ready enthusiasm, eyes alive with the opportunity to get deeper in the field. Whatever he could do for his fatherʼs memory. “But…is it okay for her to let me third wheel?”

—

Turns out it wasnʼt…quite the intimate dinner he had in mind but actually a networking dinner, happening in a hotel ballroom, of anyone who identified themselves as a part of the daemonology interest group.

Suffice it to say, it was overwhelming for a guy whose only notable venture into the field was this half-baked thesis he was writing on behalf of his late father—but Gladio was nothing if not a fighter. Despite still being dressed in his leather jacket and tank top, he went into it all smiles and firm handshakes, looking out for that name and personality who could help him out with his fatherʼs last wish. 

“Oh, of course, I _know_ your father!” A brunette historian announced to him with a severely sentimental accent in her voice. “Captain Clarus Amicitia from the Crownsguard Special Forces, right?”

“Yeah,” Gladio confirmed with enthusiasm, a flute glass in hand. This was supposed to be a professional event but damn, are those dimples cute. 

She nodded knowingly, batting the air at him. “Yeah, he and my father went a long way. My father graduated from the same military academy, yʼknow?”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Totally,” she insisted. “Why donʼt you come join me and my friends? Donʼt worry, I donʼt have a boyfriend.”

“Sounds good.” Gladio grinned. He might actually get somewhere with this networking shindig! He gestured for her to lead the way, following her towards the door. “So, are they all historians, too?” 

“Uh, not really.” She started to count them. “Well, one of themʼs a history teacher, another one dropped out and went on to become a surgeon, and then my other friends are a software engineer and a fashion designer.” 

“Oh,” Gladio stammered. So…not the kind of people that would normally get invited to a networking dinner of verified daemonologists. “And…where did you say you were gonna meet them again?”

“Mm, where was that?” She tapped her chin. “They said itʼs that nightclub just 5 minutes from here.” Oh. Nightclubs. Fun stuff. No wonder sheʼd mentioned not having a boyfriend…

—

“Daemons as beings who were formerly humans?” The blonde man mused, stroking his sharp jawline with interest. “Must say, thereʼs a theory I havenʼt heard of before.” Do these daemonologists really all come out here looking sleek and stylish? Heʼd better up his game if he didnʼt want to mess up his fatherʼs image. “And youʼre saying thereʼs probable evidence behind this?”

“Yeah, and we just donʼt know it,” Gladio shared, pulling from his bottle of beer. The blonde man did the same, keeping his eyes on him. “But those stories in the early M.E. days? And the stuff we read about in tabloids or urban legends.”

“Mhm,” the man voiced out, lips tilted upwards to one cheek. 

“About those people who saw their dead loved ones or got hypnotized by someone who looked like someone,” Gladio went on, gesturing outwards with his bottle. “If daemons are really different from us, doesnʼt make sense that they keep tricking their victims that way unless they know these guys personally. I mean if my dad ever became a daemon and walked up to me now,” he indicated the probable space he would be coming from, “Iʼd have less resistance against his tricks compared to some…guy who choked on a jellybean or something.” 

“But telepathy,” the man offered, shrugging. 

“Yeah, but,” Gladio pointed his beer to him, “not my dadʼs thesis.” 

The man laughed richly for that, smiling like a winner, or one of those menʼs magazine cover models. If he claimed that he was a public figure on daemonology, Gladio wouldnʼt doubt him at all. “True, true…why donʼt you tell me more about your thesis?”

“Yeah, sure!” Oh, finally, a real help—

“I parked my car in the basement—” Wait, what—

“Whoah, hold up.” Gladio backed up with his palms out. “Just in case it ainʼt clear, I didnʼt come out here looking to get laid.” This was the second time in one night, what the hell? 

“Oh cʼmon,” the man chuckled, still grinning irritably handsomely. “You’re new here, arenʼt you?” 

“Not the point.” 

“You wouldnʼt be such a prude if it wasnʼt.” Gladio wondered if the guy was trying to mock him or reassure him. “Are you…questioning? Exploring the waters?” 

“Pretty sure I know who and what I am but I still ainʼt interested.” Gladio sighed, tossing his bottle sideways. “Look, Iʼm sorry if Iʼm not the kinda guy you took me for but Iʼm gonna go now.”

“I could help you with your career.” He took a step forward, blocking Gladioʼs path to the door. Maybe if Gladio had been a smaller man, he could fall for his tactics but he was pretty sure he could break this guyʼs arm without breaking a sweat. “You might even find yourself enjoying it, too.” He winked. Oh wow, the nerve—

Gladio exhaled deeply. “Sir,” whatever his name was, “this isnʼt my career. This is my dadʼs thesis that he wants me to finish in his memory. You wanna know my career? Look up Gladio Amicitia on Moogle. Might be surprised to know I was the stunt guy of your favorite actor.” With a bow, he stepped around him and made a beeline out of the room. 

Plugged his phone to his ear as he climbed down the escalator. “Prompto, you and Iris still together?” 

“ _Sure are!_ ” his cheerful friend answered just as he started down another flight. “ _Sheʼs helping me pick my photos for the exhibit. Oh yeah! She found this bakersʼ expo happening tomorrow. Itʼs probably for trick-or-treaters but do you wanna go?! I was thinking I could start looking for food suppliers there!_ ” 

“Sure. You guys hungry?” Gladio marched on to the hotel lobby. “Get me outta here, letʼs go grab some noodles.”

—

“Awww, poor Gladdy,” Iris lamented, petting the ink on his arm as if it were a cat. “Iʼm sorry thatʼs how the networking dinner turned out.”

“Yeah, who knew they could be a bunch of sexy librarians, right?!” 

Gladio snorted painfully in his nose while he was slurping up his noodles from the steaming bowl. He took a moment to chew them down before he took a napkin and wiped his mouth with it. “Thanks, Prompto. This joke of a night is worth it now because of that joke you made.” 

“Is…is that good?” 

Picking up his glass of water, Gladio assured his friend beside him on the counter with a thumb up. He gulped down his drink and refilled it. “But seriously, what the hellʼs the difference between a speed dating session and a networking dinner if all they came for is the sex? That ainʼt normal, is it?” 

“Maybe it _wasnʼt_ ,” Iris mused. Their pan-fried dumplings finally arrived. Iris reached past the counter to take it from the kindly woman and served one straight to Gladioʼs plate. “But because speed dating is lots of fun, they decided to turn everything else into speed dating!” 

He picked it up, and waved it at his sisterʼs face like a warning. “Donʼt be like that, okay?” Iris raised her hand to swear. Gladio redirected his dumpling to Prompto. “You, too.” 

Prompto copied Iris, too busy slurping his noodles to speak. 

The store closed soon after, and they left in Promptoʼs car. Gladio was the first to be dropped off of the three of them. 

“Right,” Gladio clapped the driver on his shoulder as he opened the door and got out, “thanks for the ride. Iris, text me when youʼre home, okay?” 

“Bye, Gladdy!” Iris waved to him through the open door. 

“Donʼt forget tomorrow, okay, Gladio?!” Prompto chased after him. Tomorrow, the baking expo. 

After some last few waves, they finally drove off, and Gladio went inside his house. He took a long shower, popped a bottle of water open to bring it with him to his bedroom where he dumped himself in front of his laptop, staring at the front page of the thesis he suddenly found himself in possession of. _Of Daemons and Men: A Proposition As To The True Nature Of Daemons As Former Humans_. 

How could anyone think that a guy like him, who was just now taking up his diploma on daemon science, could finish this tall order? Until his father was killed in a daemonic encounter just outside Insomnia, Gladio had been happily ignorant of these creatures despite all the fight scenes heʼd choreographed that involved them. 

Now, he was sighing deeply, scratching his head, and then scrolling all the way down to the bottom to get a few more words in before he called it a day. After two hours, he gave up, switched off the lights and then dropped into his bed face first. He still had a lunch meeting for his new project tomorrow so it was extra important for him not to look shit-faced.

—

When he woke up, there was a weight on his chest, and the air was warm, as if he was standing in front of a grill. He thought he might have ended up sleeping under his heavy blanket.

But what he never expected was to see a full-grown human being laying _literally on top of him_ while somehow, also, being _completely naked._

If this was some kind of sick dream those stupid fake daemonologists and their cheap beer somehow caused him, Gladio would very much like to wake up now. “Uh,” he began stupidly. “You umm…” Was this real? Was he _seriously_ not dreaming?! “Uh…hi?” Fuck this. 

The man smiled a catʼs smile, green eyes glimmering with delight. He had tawny hair, like really light dirty blonde…and Gladio had completely no idea who he was. “Hi, Gladdy.” But somehow he knew him. 

“Okay,” Gladio whispered to himself. He cleared his throat, tried to get up but couldnʼt. His blanket was gone; when he turned to his side, he saw that it was on the floor. Was that him or…not him? “Um…this is very weird.” He turned to those green eyes again. 

He looked thoroughly amused, and he was actually kinda cute. If he wasnʼt just…weird. “I get that a lot from my erm…clients.” Clients. What was he, some kind of ninja…sex worker? Why was he naked? How did he get in here? 

“How did you get in here?” He probably should have asked that first. Though to Gladioʼs defense, the kind of day he had wasnʼt normally what heʼd call…normal. He checked the window to his left to see that it was shuttered. 

The ninja hummed, lifting a finger to trace the shape of his beard. Great. “I have my ways.” He canted his head to the right. “You know, youʼre taking this remarkably well. The others Iʼve had…” That feline smile returned. “Well, they couldnʼt even distinguish me from a dream.”

Gladio laughed briefly. “Yeah, I bet youʼd say that.” He cleared his throat. “S, so uhh…any chance you could um…” He waved him backwards. 

Those brows quivered, ever so slightly. “Pardon?” 

“I mean,” Gladio cleared his throat again, “get up…um…maybe sit somewhere else, get dressed—” 

“Excuse me?” He looked affronted when he looked closely at him with high brows. “ _You_ are asking _me_ to get off you and get dressed?” Well, that makes one thing clear. 

“Dude, Sir,” Gladio raised his hands, “with all due respect, I think you got the wrong number. I didnʼt mean to insult you but if this is some special kinky service, I didnʼt order takeaway.” 

His lips parted open in shock, then he pushed himself off his chest, palms as warm as if theyʼd been wrapped around a hot mug for too long—

“Oh wow,” Gladio sputtered when his eyes landed on his broad shoulders, his chiseled chest, the slender cut of his waist leading down to those strong thighs on either side of his hips. And if the man was completely naked, then that meant that that…something he felt on his stomach…was definitely his penis. “Y, youʼre in great shape.” 

“In great shape?” the man on top echoed with a rueful laughter. “You wouldnʼt even call me handsome or beautiful.” 

“Hey,” Gladio grunted as he got up to his elbows, “if that came off as an insult, Iʼm sorry, but I really didnʼt hire you. Do you have the address?” He reached for his phone from the nightstand. “Itʼs probably late by now but if itʼs just around here, I can take ya—” 

“Donʼt bother, youʼll only take me back to your front door.” His fingers started tapping out a rhythm on his chest. “What is it? Where did I go wrong?” Gladio realized he was asking himself those questions. “You should be asleep by now, you should be dreaming.” 

“Maybe if you didnʼt sneak up on me like this, I would be,” Gladio muttered to himself. 

The man frowned. Obviously, he heard that. “Are you married?” 

“No?” 

“Are you attached to someone?” 

“No?” 

“Not in engagement…not by dating?” 

“No.” Gladio shook his head. “Hey, do you wanna—” 

He lifted his hand to stop him. As if he wasnʼt the guy trespassing him. Those green eyes that used to look so playful glared at some nondescript spot between them. “If youʼre single, then you shouldnʼt have any qualms in trying. In fact, you could even be curious and excitable…” More mumbling to himself. Should Gladio tell him _not all singles_? The intruder bit his lower lip, looking cuter while he was at it. 

“But you _are_ attracted to men.” The weird prostitute looked closely at him again, even moving his hand up his shoulder. Gladio was starting to sweat from his excessive body heat. What if he was sick? “No, it isnʼt the attraction thatʼs the problem…and if that is the case, then it must be…” His eyes grew. 

“Mr. Amicitia,” he was suddenly polite, “by any chance, would you happen to have a…lack of interest in pursuing sexual relations with others?” 

Gladioʼs mouth fell open. Well, that was one way—and a _very_ respectful way—of putting it. “Wow, you are literally the third person to proposition me tonight but youʼre the only one that got it. Yeah, man, Iʼm totally ace.” Those eyes went wide again. 

Then he pressed his lips firmly as if to contain his disappointment, then smiled, as if to pretend that he wasnʼt. If this was his way of making Gladio feel sorry for being comfortable with who he was, it wasnʼt working. “I see now. Thank you for explaining that.” 

“Okay, so,” Gladio nodded to his open side, “can you get off now?” 

When next he smiled, he looked unfazed by his request and revelation. “But of course,” he said, using his playful voice again, “but before that, I hope you donʼt mind if I leave you a parting gift.” 

“Uh,” Gladio raised his hands as the man dipped close, “donʼt worry about it—” 

The parting gift, as it turned out, was a full-blown kiss to his mouth. Soft lips wrapped around his own, holding him in place while what felt like his tongue painted lines along the inside of his cheeks. Somehow, Gladio could think of nothing but the scent of a campfire, the taste of savory meat, warm broth, a picture of stars scattered along the deep blue skies. Heʼd read all about first kisses being impossibly sweet, heart racing. But none of the books told him it could be quite like this—familiar and friendly. 

When he opened his eyes, the man was gone, and he was all alone in the dark room. No weight, no heat… 

Gladio hissed out a curse, jumping up to sit. Nothing stirred, and somehow his blanket was back around his legs. 

So was it all a dream? Did it all turn out to be a dream, after all? That would be the most likely explanation but even so… 

He touched his lips, flicked his tongue over it to taste nothing. 

If that was a dream, then how did that kiss feel so real…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently, this chapter is just on time for ace awareness week!! happy ace awareness week, gladio!! 💜💜💜


	3. Chapter 3

For the first time, in 400 years, since Ignis came through the portal a busy daemon on duty, the wretched screams of their pitiful victims were something he felt deeply in his heart (assuming he still had one). But make it louder, and higher, and angrier. Much angrier. 

He didnʼt even stop to exchange pleasantries with the young lamia who waved at him, heading straight for the lift going up to the throne room instead. No time to stop by the office and start a new journal for his latest case—not that there was anything for him to put in the first place. 

“ _Ardyn!!_ ” he roared amidst the slamming doors, marching straight for the daemon lord who looked like heʼd just gotten up. He was still in his cream nightgown, and had a black mug attached to his lips while he gestured for him to wait. “Is this your idea of a joke?!” 

Ardyn pinched his face while he forced his coffee down through his throat. “What is?” 

“Gladiolus Amicitia!” Ignis spoke the manʼs name with enough hatred to curse him if he thought it was his fault at all. “Is asexual!!” And therein lied the problem. 

Ardyn nodded in understanding, then spread his right hand out. “So?” 

“So?” Ignis repeated hotly, stopping in front of his desk. “ _So?!_ Gods and daemons, Ardyn, what am I!” 

“Um,” Ardyn leaned a little closer to him, past his barricade of paperwork, “is this a trick question?” 

“Ifritʼs great horns, I certainly hope not!” Ignis retorted with some flailing. 

“Okay…” Ardyn straightened up, tapping his chin as his dark eyes gazed at his insurmountable ceiling. “Youʼre…” 

“It starts with an I…” Ignis prompted him, rolling his hand as if that would help him along. 

“Does it end with an S?”

“Yes?” Ignisʼ couldnʼt stop his voice from rising. 

Ardyn hummed, snapping his fingers. “You…are…” And then he pointed at Ignis in triumph. “An incubus!” 

“ _Exactly!_ ” Ignis burst out. Ardyn still looked supremely proud of himself, the damn jester. “You have turned me into a daemon that uses a human beingʼs desire for sexual relations as a means of feeding on their life force! Which Amicitia does not have! There has been no point in history where,” he gestured to both sides of him, “a 10 has been multiplied with a 0 to produce a hundred!” 

That made Ardyn giggle. He smiled brightly despite his grotesque appearance, one hand on his side, another on his desktop. “Have you ever thought about getting into writing?” 

“ _Ardyn!_ ” Ignis growled, nearly stomping his feet. 

Ardyn raised his hands in surrender. “Now, Now, Lord Scientia. I see I have given you a problem.” He went around the desk, gesturing to him. “A problem which you apparently canʼt solve.” 

“I have never said that yet.” And Ignis wouldnʼt be caught alive admitting it either. “So you knew beforehand,” he seethed. 

“I wouldnʼt give him to you if I didnʼt think you could do it,” Ardyn swept his hand to him. He crossed his arms. “Or should I just give it to someone else?” Ignis glared at him. As much as he could behind ruined eyes. He chuckled deeply, grinning at his indignation. “I thought so.” 

“Amicitia is _mine_ ,” Ignis growled. “I have never balked at an assignment and that mortal wonʼt be the first. But Gods, you couldnʼt have given me a warning!” 

“I thought you didnʼt need one.” Ardyn started back to his desk, taking a random file with him to flip through. “So what happened?”

Ignis snorted. “I applied my usual hypnosis on him but he woke up. I couldnʼt put him back to sleep, nor could I cloud his judgment to stimulate him. Itʼs as if all my enchantments are falling into the void.” 

“And what did you do?” 

Ignis sighed, adjusting his glasses. “A full frontal assault is inadvisable for a new enemy. Iʼve decided, then, that I will have to observe him first and find a different angle to penetrate him.” Ardyn tittered like a schoolboy. “So for the time being, I left my imprint on him.” 

Ardynʼs laughter faded in the hot air and his grin froze on his face. “You…what?”

Ignis flapped his arms like a pair of heavy wings that landed on his thighs with a slap. “Well, I had to find a way to keep track of him. He wouldnʼt accept my seeds so I had to use my mouth.” 

“Fully aware, of course, of the risk of your actions?” Ardyn brought his hands onto his tabletop again. 

Ignis lifted a brow. “Which, in particular?”

Ardyn shrugged. “The one that goes…what is given cannot be taken back. In other words: it must be _given_ back. Willingly.” 

“Oh. That clause in the Law of Bilateral Consent.” Ignis nodded. “Certainly. He wonʼt have much of a life left in him, anyway, by the time Iʼm done so I will just take it back from his cold, dead body.” 

Ardyn straightened up to clap his hands. “Just as expected. Your confidence-level is skyrocketing, like a sword breaching through the Astral Plane.” He moved those hands to his sides. “Now, will that be all youʼll need me for?” 

Ignis eyed him in warning. “Will that be _all_ I will need to know about him?” 

Ardyn made a play of tapping his temple in thought. “Off the top of my head…yes.” 

Ignis exhaled. “Very well. If that is the case, _then_ , I shall be off.” With that, he bowed to his master. 

And saw himself out, while the father of all daemons sent him off with fond waving.

—

How should he do this, then, he wondered.

Without a concrete plan of attack, the best thing to do, he decided, was to go with whatever plan comes to mind, first. And then review, revise and adapt as needed. 

For his fickle little mark, the consensus of one was to stalk him. Get to know his activities, his movements, his friends if needed. Perhaps he had an unrequited love somewhere, perhaps a hidden crush that Ignis could take advantage of. All he needed, after all, was one night with his victim to put him completely under his spell. 

He started at 9, the earliest hour of the true night. For the first evening, Amicitia spent it watching fighting videos on his laptop, chin on his hand, pausing sometimes to do something on his keyboard or write down some notes on his black notebook. After that, he moved on to a series of clips of a sleepy kitten tipping sideways again and again, and snickering and chortling for every one of them. When Ignis went back down to Inferno to start his report, he wondered how much longer he could take before he regretted this. 

It took two more nights before he could gain any kind of traction. As it turned out, Amicitia was responsible for the awesome combat sequences often presented in movies. He had the honor of watching him work firsthand due to some night time shooting that happened in some tunnel around the city. While he watched from the side of the crew van, Amicitia would be in the middle of some actors, surrounded by heavy lights, feinting punches and correcting blocks—whatever looked best in the camera, he supposed. 

He was well-respected among his peers, who would always share fist bumps and friendly handshakes with him and even some laughter as he exited the scene. _Gladio_ , they liked to call him. Once on his own, Ignis would follow him into a tent, and stand over his shoulders while he opened up his laptop and pull up a document that made Ignis jump despite the professional disaffection he applied to his job. Who would have thought that his mark dabbled not only in the physical sciences, but also in the paranormal field? 

He leaned over and read through the last parts of Amicitiaʼs paper while he chatted with someone who handed him a can of cola. “ _Gauging from the popular perception of daemons and other related monsters since the earliest texts, there is an obvious attempt not only to relate them to our experiences but also to sympathize with them. One aspect that can be looked at is our inherent compassion which makes us capable of caring for creatures and things not necessarily of our kind. However, this paper seeks to establish the other aspect: that despite their transformations, daemons have inevitably retained some traits of a probable human past_ …my word, Amicitia.” Ignis nudged his glasses. “Are you certain you arenʼt a daemon yourself? This is quite close to the truth!” 

Other times, he would be receiving visitors in the form of friends, one of which was his young girlfriend while another was a hyperactive blonde lad who couldnʼt keep still for a second. The latter was accompanied, of all characters, by—

Ignis hissed out a curse when he caught sight of him, doubling, tripling his glamor, even hiding behind a thick camera machine to keep himself invisible from the young grim reaper known as Noctis Lucis Caelum. Somehow, he had become acquainted with the young blonde man and was now bowing to Amicitia who handed him a cheap cup of coffee as an invitation. Unbelievable! What was he doing here? Why was he doing this? Was he poking his nose into his business now for whatever reason? Was there someone in the crew that awaited Death? 

No, he realized soon after when the man was tapping away on his phone and his blonde human companion was leaning into it. He wasnʼt here on duty, he was here because of something else: curiosity. To be among the living, to move like them and to go where they went. Of all the network of friends he could tap into…! 

Noctis was a surprise danger Ignis didnʼt realize he had to account for. So for several nights, he dressed himself in layers of protection whenever he should catch his blonde tour guide hovering near Amicitia. 

Ignis learned several other things besides his job and hobby: he took up a course on daemon science on the side of his work, had an ongoing love story with a cup of noodles (he was a little insulted by the fact that he was more attracted to it than to a seasoned incubus), was an expert in pitching tents and taking them down and, all frustrations aside, was actually ridiculously good looking and he knew it. His choice of fashion was always a leather jacket and a tank top however, there have been numerous occasions where he would strip to his pants when a fighting scene was getting particularly heated. 

This was, hands down, Ignisʼ favorite part of the stake-out. The swoops of his hard muscles were quite simply _gorgeous_ , borne from vanity and functionality. He was like a godling sculpted in plaster to stand as a champion among mortal men. And even the bird of prey on his back looked like it had perched on him so he could make it come alive. 

And yet all he could do was to sigh in wonder. How could a man who was oozing with such sex appeal be so disenchanted with sex? What a shame that those nipples may remain untasted, that bulge between his legs remain un-groped. And worse still, he was a man with a death sentence, and that was why he was here. 

Well, life was hardly fair. And this wasnʼt Ignisʼ problem, in the first place. All of this would be for naught if he couldnʼt find a way to get in his pants. 

He was glaring at him from the side of the tent while he was reading his phone when that blonde friend of his danced to his side and clapped him on his thick arm. “So,” he chirruped, “you coming tomorrow?” 

Amicitia shook his head, pocketing his device. “Canʼt, sorry. I got a review with my advisor on the same time.” 

The blonde man hummed, nodding to a beat. “Does that mean youʼre gonna stay up all night doing your thesis again?” 

“Whatʼs new?” Amicitia chuckled, shrugging. “This paper is kicking my ass and I canʼt lose. Dadʼs counting on me to finish this. I mean, I wouldnʼt be doing all this if it werenʼt important to my family, yʼknow?” 

“Yeah, I get that.” His friend sighed, then lifted his fist to hit Amicitiaʼs lightly. “Well, good luck!”

“Thanks, man. Hereʼs hoping I donʼt get grilled like skewers,” Amicitia chuckled. 

They bade goodbye to each other, and Amicitia was left to yawn and stretch in peace. It was late by mortal terms but from what he observed of his markʼs movements, he would do what he said. 

Of course—how could he not have thought of this? If the paper was important to him and it was about daemons…

Ignis heaved out his eureka. Finally, a breakthrough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl the first scene of this chapter was what kept me from binning the whole thing


	4. Chapter 4

“Yeah, so…thatʼs my day,” Gladio sighed to the phone as he drizzled some oil onto his non-stick pan. “Poor feedback, accident at work…” 

“ _Iʼm sorry to hear that, Gladdy._ ” Despite the distance that separated them, he could practically hear the frown in Irisʼ voice. He hovered his hand over the pan, testing the heat. “ _Have you had dinner? Do you wanna come here so Jared can cook for you?_ ” 

“Iʼm good, donʼt worry. Broke out the braised pork.” 

“ _Did you make a fresh batch?_ ” 

“Yeah, just two weeks ago.” With a silicone-coated pincer, he carried one of the cold slices of meat onto the pan, sizzling upon touching the hot surface. “Gonna treat myself to some double-sized comfort food, knock back a bottle or two, watch old cartoons and get some sleep. I donʼt wanna look at Dadʼs thesis tonight.” 

“ _You deserve it._ ” Iris paused… “ _Gladdy…youʼre really serious about it, arenʼt you?_ ” 

Gladio left the tongs on the now-empty plate which used to carry his pork slices. He wiped his hands on his shirt then pressed his fist on his side. “Well…yeah.” 

“ _Iʼm just thinking…maybe Papaʼs saying just make sure the thesis gets finished but…not necessarily by you._ ” 

Gladio chuckled, testing his slices. He flipped some onto their backs. “If thatʼs what he meant, then Iʼm the biggest idiot in the world.” He returned the tongs to the plate. “Didnʼt sound that way to me, though. You know Dad always talked about how his thesis could help this country protect its people from the daemons. Knowing Dad…he wanted someone who understood where he was coming from. Besides, he always wanted me to get a degree on daemonology. For the same reason…” 

“ _I think itʼs also because he knew you wouldnʼt be able to say no,_ ” Iris giggled. “ _Well, Iʼll let you unwind in peace. Iʼve got a math quiz tomorrow._ ” 

“Okay. Study hard. Bye, then.” Gladio hung up. 

He got the pork done at the same time as with the instant noodles and the fresh batch of hot water. Set them aside to chop up some green onions, bamboo shoots and the last of his fish cake, bring out the boiled egg and… 

“Seaweed,” he told himself, snapping his fingers. He remembered tearing into his last seaweed pack during his late night thesis blaze which meant he would have left it by his laptop. Gladio went back to his bedroom, then. 

Nearly died of a heart attack and a fractured skull when he wailed and jumped back at his surprise visitor, sitting on his bed as if he was waiting for him. Worse still, it was someone heʼd never met before—sharp suit, discreet glasses over his green eyes, tawny hair styled upwards according to the trend…wait a minute. 

He turned to his startled host, smiled politely. Unlike that cat smile he first greeted him with. “Hello, _Gladio._ ” Fuck, it was him—the weird ninja prostitute. 

“What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom again?” Gladio muttered between his teeth. “And how the hell did you get in, you werenʼt there when I got in!” He flung his hand out to him. 

He raised his hand as he got up. “Indeed, there are many things for us to talk about—” 

“Actually, stay right where you are.” Gladio gestured for him to stop with the palm of his hand, bouncing backwards. “Iʼm gonna do what I should have done the first time you came here.” 

“Lock the doors?” His lips peaked to his right cheek. 

Gladio bared his teeth at him. “I _did_ lock the doors.” Did he? “Anyway, Iʼm callinʼ the police!” He started back to the kitchen. 

“And what will you do if they find out youʼd been harboring a daemon in secret?” 

That caused him to stop, not so much because it was a threat but mostly because it was the most ridiculous excuse anyone could say in this situation. He eyed the man strangely while he removed his black blazer and rolled up the sleeves of his patterned shirt. “What the fuck are you saying?” 

Next to his laptop was an old desk lamp which used to belong to his father, standing in the midst of colorful stickies, dead pens, and the seaweed pack he meant to come back for. The intruder switched it on and bared his wrist upon the glare of white light. It was the stupidest thing to do when one was in danger of getting beaten up and arrested that Gladio couldnʼt help but watch—

—as black mist danced from the flesh, floating to the LED bulbs but dissipating before they clouded the incandescent—

Gladio must have lost control of his knees because he was suddenly grabbing onto the door frame for balance. He probably should start screaming or something—

“Iʼm afraid screaming will be ill-advised for this situation.” The daemon retrieved his arm, waving the mist away and inspecting for any damages. There was none. What the hell, _there was no damage_. “You live alone, you have no cameras for proof, itʼs quite late for mortals so I doubt your friendly neighbors would appreciate you making a ruckus over a daemon,” he spread his hands, “who would be gone by the time youʼd reported him.” So what the hell was he supposed to do now? 

Why the _fuck_ was there a daemon in the house in the first place?! Gladio didnʼt know. He tried to think of something but between the shock and the surprise, his mind was coming up blank. See, the closest emergency steps theyʼd been taught about daemons was to report any sightings to the Crownsguard and get the hell out of there. Also, those daemons were presumably rabid and monstrous. 

Not…dressed like a gentleman who was…not yet killing him. 

What to do, then? How come no one had created a special protocol for these circumstances yet? 

Probably because they were waiting for him to do it, Gladio thought. So what should he do? What would his dad do? 

Diffuse the situation. Give him time to size up the enemy to gauge his next steps. To do that, he had to stand up straighter, make sure he was ready to fight or run at any given time. 

Gladio cleared his throat. What next? Find out about the enemy. What did he know about him? He was a daemon, he was a trespasser, he was…in the sex industry? 

“Did you come here to proposition me again?” he asked as carefully as he could. 

“Ideally, yes,” the daemon answered. “However,” he pointed to him, “youʼre not one of my usual clients. As you have made clear, the desire for sex comes quite low in your priorities. And yet in spite of that, I had freely assumed you would be willing to copulate with me, without even trying for your consent. So for that,” he spread out his hands again, “I have come to apologize.” Apolo- _what?_

Gladio stared at him warily. Well, he did kiss him out of the blue. His first kiss! Now what should he do? “Thatʼs…new.” 

“I know we are all creatures of darkness who do little to deserve the virtues of the gods,” the daemon spoke again, pulling his sleeves down his cuff. He squinted at his ceiling light, wrinkling his nose as he frowned a little, “but we do actually still have laws, especially where interactions and relationships with the living world are concerned. Think about it this way: where did the Cosmogony books tell you daemons live?” 

“Uh…hell?” 

He nodded, putting on his blazer. “Thatʼs actually correct.” Gladio blinked. Seriously? That was to say, he never thought about it as being _in_ correct but— “And where do say…abusers of no conscience get sent after their deaths?” 

“Hell.” So was he one? 

The daemon nodded again. “Mortals from this plane have a lower echelon into which to fall. Now, imagine if a daemon oversteps his boundaries. Where should he go, then?” 

“Uh,” Gladio raised his eyes to the ceiling as he shifted through his basic daemonology notes in his head, “the last…circle of hell?” How many circles were there again? 

“Thatʼs still in hell, Gladio.”

“Well, dammit, I didnʼt want to think about daemonology tonight!” Gladio clicked his tongue. When the daemon dipped his head, he actually looked seriously apologetic. “Anyway, whatʼs the answer?” He raked his hair up. “This might come out in some future test.” 

The daemon looked him in the eye. “There is nothing that follows hell.” Oh, he hated trick questions— “We call it the void. A vacuous plane, if you please, that erases every existence that falls into it. Which means soul, essence, a chance for rebirth…” He shook his head. “It all disappears. And then you become nothing. No buts, no second chances or loopholes—just completely nothing.” 

Gladio was left to stare and blink. Void, rebirth, nothingness…for a second, he wondered if this stranger was just some crazy cult leader but then he remembered seeing the black mist emanate from his skin. And anyone who knew daemons knew why the light did that to them. 

The daemon sighed. “My apologies,” he flung his hand sideways, “I rattled off to you about my kind again but in conclusion, I donʼt want to fall down there,” he said. “So this is why I am here, getting burnt like a slow-roast by your ceiling light, because I want to make amends for my actions.” Oh. 

Gladio tried to fight off the suspicious frown from his face, but what could he do? So far, the guy hadnʼt done anything to attack him yet, he wasnʼt lying about being a daemon… “You sure you arenʼt just here to trick me into a false sense of security to attack me one day?” 

He crossed his arms. “If I said no, or even if I said yes, would you believe me?” Oh, he was a smart daemon. 

Gladio couldnʼt finish this now. He needed more time to consider his enemy. “Dʼyou wanna eat?”

—

He ended up having to split his double-sized comfort food into two bowls—each containing one portion of the curly noodles, the broth, two sheets of seaweed, two slices of pork and boiled eggs and one slice of fish cake, as well as generous servings of green onion and bamboo shoots.

“Look, I know it ainʼt the fancy stuff youʼd expect from traditional restaurants but,” Gladio shrugged, pulling his noodles up with his fork, “I wasnʼt really planning on sharing, see. I couldnʼt have known that there was going to be a daemon waiting for me.” Why was he taking this so calmly? 

As for the daemon himself, he had been staring at his bowl of noodles since it was served to him. “You…were going to eat all of this by yourself?” 

Gladio stopped mid-slurp. He surprised himself when he laughed, finishing his noodles before he asked him, smirking, “I guess daemons donʼt get stressed, huh?” 

“My surprise is purely because a glance at your physical appearance would suggest a healthy balanced diet.” Finally, he picked up his fork and pierced the pork slice. 

“Hey, this _is_ balanced! Carbs, protein, some fiber…” Gladio brought his bottle of beer to his lips and pulled. “Anyway, itʼs not like I eat this all the time. Tonightʼs a special occasion.”

The daemon was nodding as he finished his slice of pork. “Well, this is rather tasty,” he said, finally stirring the contents of the bowl together. “Thatʼs good caramelization.” 

“Yeah?” Gladio grinned freely. Fuck this, if the daemon was acting like a human to trick him, then heʼll do the same. “I do a mean braised pork. Funny, I thought you said you daemons didnʼt eat.” He slurped up more noodles. 

“I meant we didnʼt _need_ to eat.” His daemon guest ate his fish cake. “But we can enjoy the act now and again.” 

“That how you get to know things about caramelization and stuff?” 

This time, the daemon was the one caught mid-slurp. There was a beat where he looked like he hesitated before he went on and sucked up all his noodles, anyway. Like a true connoisseur, he took some tissue from the napkin holder and pressed it on his lips. 

Then he folded it in a neat square and set it next to his bowl. All his actions were deliberate…careful. 

And his face looked pensive. “To be honest…I donʼt remember how I came to know of that,” he admitted with surprising quietness that Gladio had to stop eating just to make sure he heard his voice. “I only remember…the feeling of standing in front of a pot…the sound of my knife on the wood, the smell of fat…the feeling of salivating on its aroma.” 

“Wait, hang on a second.” Gladio stopped him again with his hand. “You…remember? These things…” He nodded to his shoulder. “Theyʼre stuff that happens in my kitchen—I mean, my dadʼs houseʼs kitchen.” The daemon was familiar with…these normal things. 

That caused the daemon to smile, something that glimmered somehow. “Oh yes,” he said, “we havenʼt discussed the manner of my making amends yet.” He raised his face to him. “I am aware that you are in the midst of creating a thesis about my kind. And that it is very difficult for you.”

“How?” 

The daemon canted his head to a side. “I was in your bedroom, I saw your screen and your scattered notes.”

“Oh.” Gladio scratched his temple. He was just straight up giving himself away here. 

“I want to help you finish that paper, which is so important to you,” the daemon revealed. “So…to put it plainly…you may ask me anything about my kind, and I will answer your questions.” What… 

Was he serious? Gladio whipped up to him, and he thought he heard his heart thumping louder. “W, wait, you…you serious?” 

The daemon nodded. “Ask me something.”  
Shit, the chance of a lifetime—

Gladioʼs seat groaned when he pulled himself closer to his table and sputtered the problem statement of his thesis: “Are daemons formerly humans?” 

The daemon smiled slightly. “Not all of us.” Not _all_ of them…which meant _some_ — “Some of us are animals which have been affected by the darkness.” _Bahamutʼs holy scales._ “The affection is predefined by certain laws which your thesis is not concerned of, but to answer your question simply again:” Gladio held his breath. “Yes.” 

“ _Shit_ ,” Gladio smacked his hand on the table. “Dad was right!” 

“Indeed,” the daemon confirmed again, twirling his noodles around his fork. “Around four centuries ago, I used to be a human named Ignis Stupeo Scientia.” He smirked. “You can see how old I am with the inclusion of a middle name in my full name.” He carried the noodles to his mouth and slurped. 

“Scientia like…” Gladio furrowed his brows slightly. “House Scientia? From the monarchy days?” From what he remembered, theyʼd gone and died some hundred or so years ago after a giant earthquake. 

The daemon called Ignis (meaning _fire_ —how appropriate) confirmed with a nod, still eating. “However when or where I was born…what I used to do, my parents, my siblings if I had any…I do not recall them anymore.” 

“What happened to you?” 

That catʼs glint was back in his eyes when he smirked at Gladio, soggy seaweed on his fork. “Weʼre getting a bit too personal now, are we? So I take it we have an agreement?” 

“I—” Gladio frowned. “Wait, a damn second, youʼre trying to get me to sell my soul to you, arenʼt you?” 

“Normally, yes.” Ignis ate the seaweed, then rested his chin on a net made from his fingers. “But again, I remind you: I moved without your consent. The burden of paying dues now falls on me.” 

“You’re weird.”

“At least Iʼm not eating you,” Ignis pointed out, cocking a brow. Unfortunately, he was right. “If we have an accord, I shall visit you every night and we shall work on your thesis together.” 

“Hang on, not tomorrow night.” Gladio lifted his phone from the table to check the date on his screen. “I uh…got somewhere I gotta be tomorrow.” 

“Where?” 

“Founderʼs Garden.” 

“Will you be bringing your thesis?” Ignis carried his bowl. 

“I guess.” Why was he asking that question? 

“Then, I shall see you there tomorrow.” Ignis drank the soup from the rim of the bowl. 

“No,” Gladio waved his hand, “you canʼt. You donʼt understand, itʼs,” he pressed his hand to his chest, “itʼs my job. Okay? I ainʼt completely a student, Iʼm only taking up an online diploma on daemon sciences so I can finish this thesis that belonged to my dad. But I got a full-time job as a fight coordinator so Iʼm actually gonna be busy talkinʼ to people and directing scenes—” 

“So it will be inconvenient for me to be seen so suddenly near you, yes?” Ignis smiled, taking his fork again. 

Gladio gestured to him with his hands. “Basically, Iʼm glad you understand.” 

“Ahh, but donʼt you see?” Ignis pierced his last slice of pork. “Tomorrow will be a good opportunity for you to witness one of the greatest powers of a daemon.” 

“Uh?” Was he going to burn the whole garden down? Gladio straightened up in alarm. 

“Tomorrow, letʼs say at exactly 9:49 in the evening, I shall appear an arm span to your right,” Ignis said, folding the pork in two. “When you see me, you may scream or do whatsoever you desire. However, you will observe that no one will notice what you are doing. And everyone will proceed to communicate with you as normal.” Finally, he swallowed the braised meat. “Mm, good fat content.”

—

_Glamor_ was what he called the trick—the ability to hide oneself under an illusion of oneʼs liking. True enough, when Ignis had appeared beside him on the appointed minute and he screamed, his sister Iris (who he had specifically asked for some takeaway coffee at that time because he was secretly scared of being secretly tricked into getting murdered) only went on talking about her school crush to him.

So that was how they began, and that was how they went on for the rest of the nights that followed. Ignis would always drop by at around 8:30 in the evening and he would be gone by the time Gladio had woken up. They started all the way from the top where they went on to highlight, comment and replace numerous blocks of texts with whatever Ignis provided. “You can quote me on that,” he had said once. 

It made Gladio laugh, resulting to a shower of popcorn right at his face which Ignis pitched at him. “Dude— _what?_ ” 

“Did you just laugh at me?” The daemon tutted, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the deep bowl on his lap. This was the first time he was seeing this kind of expression on him and it was tickling him. He sat next to Gladio on the dining table. “You would doubt me even when I have convinced you several times that I am a daemon?” 

“Ignis, thatʼs not it,” Gladio said, still amused. He reclaimed the bowl to dig for his own kernel while Ignis chipped at his handful. “I canʼt just put here like… _according to this daemon I met at home_ , they wonʼt believe what I said.”

“Donʼt you have that defense to argue your point at them?” 

“Yeah but like in any court, I need evidence to back me up and itʼs gotta be evidence they understand.” Gladio returned the bowl to him when he asked for it back. “Like stuff thatʼs widely published like books and newspapers.” 

“How tedious and distrustful of you mortals,” Ignis seemed to pout when he said that, filling his hand with popcorn again. 

Come the next night at home, Ignis arrived with some books heʼd borrowed from the national library using his membership card and his image. 

“ _The_ national library?” Gladio flipped a book open and had to gawk at the amount of index cards pressed between intermittent pages, all of them scribbled in a handsome script which he thought, until then, lived only in computers these days. “Ignis…you did the work for me!” 

“It seems faster that way,” Ignis explained, picking at the wrapped cubes of strawberry-chocolates between them, looking for that one that contained nuts. “Now, you only need to type them into your document.”

“When did you do this, though?” Gladio inspected the spines of the other books he was given. Heavy stuff. Stuff that hadnʼt fallen into his radar until now. “Usually takes me a month to go through just one book!” 

“Unlike you mortals, my body does not require sustenance, rest or even amusement to power through the day.” Finally having found his flavor, Ignis unwrapped it in his fingers and picked up the confectionery to put in his mouth. “I did this while you were doing all of the above.”

“I thought you couldnʼt go out during the day?” 

“I could, as long as I do not get exposed to the light,” Ignis explained calmly. “Like I said, being immortal and unrestricted by flesh and blood, we do not require rest.” 

Gladio whistled, looking through the other books. It was the picture of hope, all these notes. A little encouragement to show him that the thesis wasnʼt a tall order and he had all these sources he could use to finish it. “Damn,” he laughed, giddy inside, “I could kiss you right now.” It took him an embarrassingly long time to recognize the words heʼd said. 

He stopped Ignis and his funny smile with a warning finger, scooting backwards on his seat. “Thatʼs a metaphor. I didnʼt mean that literally.” Shit, did he just let his guard down like that? “Do you know what a metaphor is?” But why did he have to be so damn nice to him, anyway?! He was a daemon! He was supposed to be evil and not…helpful and funny and eloquent and…! 

“Iʼm quite sure the term was invented closer to my time than yours,” Ignis chuckled, or was he laughing through his nose? “Be at ease, Gladio. Your thesis is yet undone and we have much work to do.” Oh, he was going to be the death of Gladio…

—

Later on, he even ended up helping him through his classes, as well as his assignments. Every night they met, Gladio wondered if he shouldnʼt already be moving against him but…could he? Why?

How could he still think of him as a creature of evil just because he wasnʼt human? Theyʼd been sharing conversations, sharing food… 

“Ah,” Ignis began suddenly, a steamed dumpling hovering near his lips. The plate of it marked the border between both of them as they sat on the floor, surrounded by open books, serial articles printed on clean paper and his laptop. In the meantime, Gladio was picking out the red and green sleeves of capsicum from his bowl of stir-fried noodles. “Put in also…perhaps, call it _the grip test_.” 

“Hm?” Gladio glanced up to him as he finally consumed his dumpling. For a being that supposedly didnʼt eat, he was certainly fond of food. Further evidence to support the _daemons were formerly humans_ arguments? Whatever, Gladio wouldnʼt complain. “Whatʼs that now?” 

Ignis cleaned his fingers on some tissue and offered his hand to Gladio. “Your wrist, please.” Gladio didnʼt even think twice before he put it on the hand and let those fingers enclose around the meat just after his pulse. Tightly but not painfully. His skin was hot, but the kind that reminded him of a toasty bed in a stormy night. “Now, see,” when he opened his fingers, the red lines between them faded as normal, “this happens because you are warm-blooded shells.” By now, heʼd learned to just roll with the way Ignis talked about humans. “Now,” he offered his wrist to Gladio, “perform the same test on me.” 

Gladio wiped his hand down his shirt before he wrapped his fingers around the same part on Ignisʼ wrist, applying the same pressure from earlier. His wrist looked so slender but he could feel the power in it. 

“Harder,” the daemon giggled. “Much harder—I do not break easily.” 

“Sure, doesnʼt mean I gotta try and hurt you, though,” Gladio snorted, smirking at him. “I know weʼre both kinda strong, no need to make a competition out of that.” And aside from knowing he was going to lose to the daemon in a match of strength and endurance, it was just so unnecessary. He did make a play of gripping him for a little longer before he released. 

Ignis had proven his point when he saw that the skin hadnʼt changed color, which was both _okay_ and unsettling at the same time, enough to cause him to stare and blink. The things one took for granted. It was like trying to play scientist on a real-life mannequin if such a thing existed. “Do it again, if you must,” he invited him. 

“You sure you ainʼt just some masochist?” Gladio chuckled, repeating the same experiment, keeping a close eye on the daemonʼs limb. 

“Please, thatʼs probably the last thing I will be. Also, youʼre not that strong.” A tease for a tease. How could he resist? 

“If youʼre trying to bait me to hurt you even just a little, you better just give up,” Gladio laughed. “These muscles are for protecting, not for causing harm. I started learning martial arts when I was a kid ‘cause I thought it looked so cool. Made me feel like I was following after my dadʼs footsteps, yʼknow? Protecting people. Being strong and all…” He released Ignis again. Still no changes. 

He couldnʼt keep his shudder to himself even when he started to laugh again, inspecting the skin closely, rubbing his fingers on it as if to undo any invisible damages he might have caused. “Thatʼs…thatʼs weird,” he said. 

“We daemons have no warm blood,” Ignis explained, retrieving his arm, running his own hand gently on it. “So nothing gets pushed, I suppose. The heat that you feel on my skin comes from my infernian spirit.” Did he mean…that toasty feeling? 

Why did he keep thinking of Ignis as toasty? That was wrong, bad, inappropriate. He was a daemon, he was wicked. Gladio cleared his throat, scratching his head. “Okay.” Enough of this—back to the topic at hand. “So…miasmalysis and grip test as physical traits of daemons with human appearances.” 

“You may be required to argue that last part in your answer,” Ignis warned him, finally cracking open the plastic lid of his bowl of noodles, itself covered with green and red pepper stuff. 

“Yeah, I got it.” Despite all those warnings he told himself about being friends with a daemon, though, he didnʼt listen to them. Once all the slivers of bell peppers had been removed from his bowl, Gladio took Ignisʼ and switched them. After all, _he_ didnʼt mind them. But someone else did. 

Ignis had frozen, staring at his cleaner bowl, fork hanging in mid-air. “Did you…” 

“Hm?” Gladio started to loosen up his noodles with a little mix. He tried to act all innocent but he knew, of course, what had caught the daemon unawares. He wouldn't make a big deal out of it, though. Heʼd been mooching off Ignisʼ hard work for the last few weeks, he wanted to pay him back for it in some way. Also—he wasnʼt a dick. 

“Did you just…” He didnʼt realize it yet but this was the first time those green eyes were staring at him in some shock. “…remove the bell peppers for me?” 

Gladio nodded. “Yeah. Youʼre always complaining about how they never cook ‘em right and theyʼre always raw…but we keep ordering this anyway ‘cause of me, right?” Another thing he wanted to pay him back for. 

“Well, no, I…” Ignis suddenly looked so uncertain of himself…and kinda cute while he tried to find his place back onto his lofty chocobo only to keep slipping. “I do…enjoy it, too. I suppose I shouldnʼt have been complaining but—”

Gladio snorted, shaking his head, still working on his bowl. Of course he can complain. 

“—you…listened…to them?”

Gladio looked at those stunned eyes, then. “Yeah. I always listen to you, Ignis.” He smiled funnily. His lectures, his advice, snippets about himself…anything he wanted to share, Gladio took them all happily. Why shouldnʼt he? Maybe they were really just two people getting familiar with each other, light and darkness be damned. “Do you actually wanna try them, though?” He started to slide his overturned plastic lid with the discarded stuff to the daemon. 

“N, no, thatʼs…” Ignis waved his hand to refuse. “…quite all right. I, it is simply that…” He stuck his fork tentatively into his bowl. “Itʼs just that…I was surprised, thatʼs all.” 

Gladio put on a little smile, huffing quietly through his nostrils. “That I could be your friend? That _we_ could be friends?” Judging from the way Ignis stopped twirling his fork around his noodles, he figured he got it right. 

He started to chuckle. That made two of them, then. “Probably shouldnʼt be.” He slurped up his noodles. “I mean,” he went on as he chewed, “since we were kids, the first thing they teach us about daemons is that youʼre bad. You punish bad kids, you capture maidens so the prince could go and save them…you put bad ideas in people so the Oracle gets to vanquish you like some deus ex machina…youʼre a warning, a narrative device in some lesson about morality and love. If I were someone else, Iʼd probably tell me to trick you, bind you, milk you and throw you to the bottom of the sea or something.” Like the stuff they say in books, he meant to add. 

He stopped when he heard Ignisʼ fork clatter to the ground. He might as well have dropped an expensive teapot from Tenebrae and achieved the same effect. Gladio straightened up suddenly, felt a little startled when he saw how Ignis looked so distracted, as if he was watching something in the air only he could see. 

“Hey, Ignis?” When the daemon didnʼt respond, though, he moved his bowl to the floor, got up hastily to make room for himself amidst the books and texts to sit down next to Ignis. “Hey,” he whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder to give him a little shake. Something was wrong, this had never happened to Ignis before. “You okay? Can you hear me— _yow!!_ ” 

“Will you do it?” Ignis snarled to him suddenly, fangs bared, his hand squeezing the one Gladio had placed on his shoulder. Electrifying pain coursed down from his crushed fingers to his elbow. “Will you bind me and milk me?” What was he—

“What the hell?!” Gladio hissed, trying to shift his arm so that Ignisʼ punishment hurt less. “You think I can? Even if I was the kind of lowlife to do it, I canʼt even beat you in arm wrestling!” He winced when a fresh wave of pain tingled along his limb. “Cʼmon, Ignis, I need my arm for work.” 

“Do you swear it?” 

Gladio raised his right hand swiftly. “Swear it on my dad and the Astrals and our friendship.” And whoever and whatever else— 

A wave of relief washed through him when Ignis finally flung his hand free. Gladio winced as he felt his blood pouring back to his hand. The first thing he did was to test his fingers, and then the tightness of his grip. “Ow,” he moaned again. 

“Be certain of it,” Ignis growled, depositing his bowl to the floor to pick up some book and march his way fuming to Gladioʼs bed, where he dropped himself and flipped through the pages. He was upset. 

Gladio didnʼt expect that kind of reaction. Here he was, just reciting what heʼd read off the books, seen in the movies but…

But of course, he had the right to be upset. Did he just…had he been racist there? “Hey, look, Ignis,” he shifted a little closer, tried to beckon to him with his uninjured hand, “Iʼm sorry if you thought that was a bad joke. I didnʼt mean to pick on a sensitive topic.” Ignis flipped the book shut, glared at some space. “I wonʼt talk about it again. I promise, Iʼll be careful about my words from now on.” Or had it happened to him before? So could it really happen?

It probably wasnʼt enough, his apology. So he went on to add, “Ignis, I promise I wonʼt do it to you. No matter what happens between us. I dunno how to do it, anyway, and I donʼt know anyone who could do it. Besides, after all weʼve been through, you think I can just throw you under the bus like that?” He raised his right hand suddenly, squaring his shoulders when Ignis looked cautiously at him. “Honest.” 

“Why should I believe you?” Why… 

Gladio shrugged and showed him his red hand. “Well, you’re stronger than me, right? Iʼve got nothing on you. Way I see it, in fact, Iʼm the guy here who needs something from you.” He pressed his elbows on his knees. “Thanks to you, I feel like I can actually fulfill my dadʼs last wish. But if youʼre starting to feel threatened with me, you could just go whenever…” Threatened—a strange word to use on a powerful being but that was what Gladio saw just now. 

It made Ignis laugh. “Me? Threatened? By who, you? A mere mortal?” 

“Maybe?” Gladio shrugged again. “I mean…you wouldnʼt attack me like that if you werenʼt…” He trailed off. He didnʼt need to keep drilling it on Ignis. Whatever he felt, whatever happened to him, that was his personal business. 

“Hey, dʼyou wanna call it a night? Here.” Gladio handed him his unfinished bowl. “Let’s just finish our dinner and call it a night.”

—

Later in his sleep, he felt another weight lay itself down on him, reminiscent of the warm blankets he used to enjoy when he was a kid living in his dadʼs house before he moved away.

He was in his bedroom now, one side full of toys, another his books, another the colors of his belts just over his cluttered writing desk. It was a weekend, though, leading into another weekend. 

The best kind of sleep any kid could want for. “My, my…” That deep, tempered voice began as he caressed his left cheek. “Youʼre being quite receptive tonight, arenʼt you?” 

Gladio smirked, pulling his blanket higher to his neck. “Itʼs the weekend,” he said. A light kiss landed on his cheek, trailed down his jaw, onto the corner of his lips. “Hey…shouldnʼt you be getting some sleep now, too? We had a long day today…” Somehow, he knew who that voice belonged to. 

“Soon…” That hand caressed his arm. “I shall have the most fulfilling rest in a while.” 

Gladio nodded, feeling those lips on his muscles. “Cool, then,” he said. That would be nice for him. “Hey, Ignis?” He spoke again, barely a second later. 

“Yes, Gladio?” He sounded so soft and nice. He liked hearing him this way. 

Gladio frowned. “Sorry about making you upset earlier.” Especially knowing that he was the cause of it. He should have been more careful. “I really didnʼt mean it. And…thanks…for sticking around.” He smiled. “I really appreciate it.” Should he take him out to coffee? He totally should. It was just the thing to do for people who helped you—

When he woke up, there was a man, a naked man, capturing him in his arms. 

Gladio lied frozen in his bed—his own bed, the one not in his fatherʼs house, and the world all around him was dark and quiet. 

When he put a hand carefully onto the naked back, those strong arms around his neck only tightened as if to strangle him. “Ignis?” But he wasnʼt choking him. He would be dead by now, otherwise. “Hey…you okay?” He patted him. Ignis wouldnʼt respond, though… 

Still, it wasnʼt like he could bother a man who clearly needed some form of comfort. He was naked, sure, but they could talk about it later. “Hey, itʼs okay,” he rumbled, tapping what was hopefully a comforting rhythm onto his hard back while he wrapped him in his own embrace. “Itʼs okay, I wonʼt let you get exorcised. Donʼt worry, itʼs gonna be okay…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this is the first chapter with non-con

The door flies open, heavy wood banging onto the rough concrete wall. He is barely awake when that hand grabs for his wrist and yanks him out of his bed. “No, wait!!” They never wait, though. Heʼs gone without his shoes, without another plea through his throat. 

Down, down into that wretched hell. Torches ablazing, spiraling on downwards. He tries to fight back but he is never too strong for this. They always feed him too little, use him too much. 

In the cold room, they strip him of his nightgown, cuff him to a post on the wall. With his ankles restrained to another implement, he has no choice but to bend forward. Making it easier for them to lather him up with scented oil in his entrance, shoot his cock in a leather sack connected to the clamps around his nipples. They hurt, still fresh from being pinched and bitten like a womanʼs teats.

“Who is it? _Augh!_ ” He has to remind himself to relax, to open when theyʼre forcing the plug into his back. “Master, who is it?” The room is dark, long shadows the only things he can see but he is always there. He never misses out on a chance to watch him. “Please, Master, tell me…that I might know how to please them.” It is a shoddy excuse that he still uses when he is desperate. 

He doesnʼt have to wait for the answer—before long, he hears some hidden door creaking open and the familiar drone of a devout entering the room with grave steps. The faithful is shrouded all over in black, hands clasped, a thick black cord looped around his arms. 

_A whip._ “No,” he gasps, pulling against his restraints. “No, please, Master, not him! _Not him!!_ ”

—

Ignis woke up before the first kiss of the whip, missing the long shadows, the cruel faces as he gazed up to the uneven ceiling of the cavern that served as his private quarters. A dream…a shard of his past life, the last one he abandoned.

 _How strange,_ he thought, sitting up on his cot to pull his knees to his arms. It had been centuries since that last happened to him. Stranger, still, there had been no trigger. No stories of abuse, no whips, no cuffs. 

“ _…Iʼd probably tell me to trick you, bind you, milk you…_ ” 

He gazed at his wrists, their flawless skin. It had been so long since he had seen them wrapped in black rings, black leather… 

“ _Will you bind me and milk me?_ ”

That must have been it. The triggers. 

Ignis closed his eyes, remembering the size of Gladioʼs fist around his arm, its inherent power, restrained only by the manʼs shred of conscience. If he had been a weaker man, if Gladio had been a stronger, crueler daemon… 

He tried to imagine it. Back slamming against the wall, long shadows, hands around his wrists, pinned to the wall, amber eyes glinting menacingly in the dark… 

Ignis shuddered, opening his eyes to bring him back to his untouched wrists. His power, his freedom. 

_I should have taken him,_ he said, frowning at the voice of his regret. _I should have pushed my seeds inside him while I still had my chance._ He shouldnʼt have stopped. Why _had_ he stopped? 

“ _Sorry about making you upset earlier,_ ” heʼd said. “ _I really didnʼt mean it. And…thanks…for sticking around. I really appreciate it._ ”

Four-hundred years…that was how long it took him to hear those two special words— _sorry_ and _thank you_. Was he so starved of human decency that the longing for it had chased him beyond the grave? 

To be held…not to be punished but to be comforted. To be told that it was okay, in gentle whispers. 

“ _Donʼt worry, itʼs gonna be okay…_ ” 

Ignis closed his eyes again to bring himself back to that moment. Strong, thick arms wrapped around him, the warmth of his skin against his, the smell of clean sweat and his laundry powder. His deep, soothing voice so close to his ear. 

_Pull yourself together, Ignis,_ he told himself. _You are a daemon, and he is a sinful mortal. Youʼve already breached his defenses, all thatʼs left is to seduce him._ Must he? But if he seduced him… 

Oh, if he seduced him…

—

He caught him just as he leaned close to sniff at him. “Ugh!” Ignis raised his elbow. “Gladio, what—!”

“You _did_ put on a perfume,” Gladio laughed, beaming brighter than the streetlights besides them. “I thought you smelled nice.” Nice? “Is that glamor, too?” He said he smelled nice…

Ignis smirked, keeping a conscious grasp on his illusion before he gave away the heat on his cheeks. “I take it youʼre impressed?” 

“With you? Who wouldnʼt be?” Gladio grinned. If Ignis had a heart, still, it would probably be floating now, he thought. 

Tonight was a special night for the both of them, though maybe more so for Ignis. That blonde friend of Gladioʼs was to open his first photo gallery and he was an honored guest. So Gladio extended the invitation to him, as his plus one, he said. 

Ignis had never been invited to such occasions before, even when he was still among the living. The closest heʼd drawn to one, in fact, was simply to peer at the guests from a distance, at their stylish gowns, their handsome jackets. 

There was nothing of the sorts to be found tonight, but Ignis was still quite thoroughly charmed. The room was large, quiet music was playing in the background and there was…a friendly crowd milling about the open spaces, dressed in their own versions of _clean and nice_. Giant, colorful photographs hung on every wall, a generous space provided between each of them. 

A cheerful, “Gladio!!” burst out from behind them, that blonde friend waving his arms wildly before he and the large man clasped each other in a one-armed embrace. “Thanks for coming!!” That last word, he practically sang out. 

“‘sif I could miss it!” Gladio bounced a fist on his arm. “Congratulations, man. Youʼre famous now. The place looks _packed!_ ” Packed? Oh, _this_ was packed? 

Ignis had to breathe a sigh of relief. This was a nice kind of ‘packedʼ, he thought. 

His blonde friend giggled triumphantly, punching his palm. “So much for worrying, I guess.” 

“You said it.” Gladio grinned. “Hey, this is my friend, by the way.” He put his arm around Ignisʼ back, hand falling over his biceps. Ignis froze. “His nameʼs Ignis. Ignis, this guyʼs Prompto. We met at work.” 

“How do you do, Prompto?” Ignis extended his arm to him. “Congratulations on a spectacular opening.” He couldnʼt believe how excited he felt to say that. Did he sound like a gentleman when he said that? 

Prompto let out a pitchy laughter colored with shyness as they shook hands, himself dipping his head while he was at it. “Thanks for dropping by! Just uh…” He flung his hands outwards, “Enjoy yourself, okay?!” More nervous laughter. 

“Donʼt worry too much about us,” Gladio assured him, clasping him on his shoulder. “Weʼll be just fine. You run the place by yourself? Whereʼs Noct, anyway?” Oh. But of course. 

“You rang?” He should have expected this. 

He appeared (quite literally?) behind them, one hand on his phone, the other in his pocket. The grim reaper hadnʼt changed one bit since last they met, still entirely in black, still with that haughty look about him. 

For whatever it was worth, Ignis at least held the element of surprise in this meeting. Those dark blue eyes of Noctis’ went wide upon seeing him quite literally in the flesh. Ignis graced him with a furtive smile as if to say, _I know_. 

“Uh…hi,” came Noctisʼ robotic response. “Nice to meet ya.”

—

“Dude, what are you doing here?” the grim reaper hissed.

As if anyone could see them underneath the layers of their glamor. “Iʼm working,” Ignis stated as a matter of fact, sipping from the straw of his tall cocktail. He kept himself as stoic as he could manage. 

“Working? Did you change your job title?” Noctis pointed at Gladio at the far end of the room, sharing a boisterous laughter with his sister and some other common friend of theirs. He had a maroon envelope in his hand, a new addition to his attire. “‘cause that guy looks about as dead as a chocobo in heat. Also, he hasnʼt fallen under the radar yet.” 

“Thatʼs because Iʼm just getting started,” Ignis sighed, looking unimpressed at the frowning reaper, twisting the cap of his bottle of softdrinks. “This one is particularly crafty. Iʼm still in the process of luring him into a false sense of security before I breach his defenses.” 

“And are you getting anywhere?” He was. That much, at least, he knew, was true. 

But the rest of the assignment was his own business. Ignis glared at Noctis pulling from the bottle. “Of course. Do you even know who youʼre talking to? How about you? What are _you_ doing here?” 

“Uh…” Noctis smiled. “Iʼm working, too.” 

“Indeed.” 

“Iʼm being serious!” Noctis took the time to pull from his bottle before he went on. “You think Prompto can just manage this whole thing on his own? I helped, yʼknow?” 

“I didnʼt realize being a grim reaper includes some degree of community service,” Ignis challenged him with a high brow. 

“Well, no…” Noctis shifted a little on his feet. “Anyway, someoneʼs been slacking off so there havenʼt been a lotta deaths these days.” 

“Between an incubus who spends his whole time with his mark and a grim reaper whoʼs loitering around with a mortal friend for no pressing matter, I wonder who this someone is,” Ignis returned. 

“Who knows?” Noctis tilted the bottle into his mouth again. “Could be any of us.” How insufferable. “Anyway, no one up thereʼs looking for me yet and Iʼm having the time of my life. Shopping, playing video games, eating junk food.” He cackled. “Promptoʼs a great guy.” 

“Fickle things.” Ignis rolled his eyes. 

“Theyʼre fun, though,” Noctis smirked, screwing the bottle shut so he could cross his arms. “Everything sounds the same but every momentʼs different from the last. Prompto taught me that. How about you? Youʼve been with this guy long enough to be his friend.” What had he learned since they agreed to work together? 

It was best to boil oneʼs noodles separate from the broth. One must create backups of their backups in the event of a fatal error. How funny that even a charmer like Gladio was driven by fickle things. Ignis could forgive him, though. His passion with such matters were admirable, his dedication to all forms of his work. And he was friendly and kind and gentle. 

What had he learned since he moved closer to Gladio? Ignis thought about all those moments he observed his profile while he was busy with his thesis. The concentration over his brows as he observed a choreography playing out, or how easily the light played in his amber eyes. The way his smile brightened up his face at a joke, an accomplishment or just…for anything. 

What had he learned? That a flawed mortal could be kind from the heart, and could love with the entirety of it. That he could be decent and compassionate with no illness lurking in him. 

That himself…a daemon…could be graced with them, as well. A smile, an apology, an act of gratitude. The softest comfort known to all. 

And that he, a daemon, could be falling for a sinful mortal, caressing him, observing him as he slept, at peace with his peaceful aspect… 

Ignis forced a frown on his face. “Nothing. He taught me only that it is best to boil oneʼs noodles separately from the broth.” 

Noctis burst out laughing, falling forward to slap his knees. “Well, I canʼt say thatʼs not a valuable lesson! But seriously, thatʼs it?”

“What more must I learn from him, anyway?” Ignis sighed, inspecting the room for him. His sister was trailing him around while he patted someone on the shoulder. “Heʼs…”

“‘scuse me, you seen my friend Ignis around?” Gladio asked the stranger. 

Ignis dropped his glamor. “Damn, heʼs looking for me.” 

“Iʼll see ya around, then, Ignis,” Noctis said to him. 

Ignis waved back to him as he marched for Gladioʼs position. Iris pointed him out, bringing out another one of those brilliant smiles onto his markʼs face. Ignis had to remind himself to breathe before he fainted from his swelling chest. Was all of this at all possible for daemons? 

He smiled back with a small nod and reunited with them. “My apologies, I was enjoying myself thoroughly in conversations and these photographs.” 

“Pretty cool, huh?” Gladio grinned. “Promptoʼs a great guy.” So Noctis said. “Anyway, you ready to go?” Go? Go where? 

“Back home?” Ignis couldnʼt believe the thought of it made him feel heavy in his guts. Was that…disappointment? 

Gladio winked at him, though, setting his infernian spirit alight again. “Itʼs a surprise.” A _surprise!_ No, wait. 

His old life…that man who owned him, he, too, would often prepare surprises for him, as well and—

“Gladdy, make sure you come, okay?” Iris raised her arms to her bigger brother. “Everyoneʼll be expecting you!” 

“All right, all right,” Gladio sighed, folding himself down to hug her. “I guess Dad wonʼt mind if I shirk out on thesis duties for one night. Iʼll see ya in the ball, then.”

“See yaaa,” Iris sang back, squeezing the larger man in her arms. Then bowing and waving to Ignis, she said to him, “Enjoy, Iggy!” Enjoy? 

“ _Iggy?_ ” Ignis repeated as soon as they were walking out of the venue. 

Gladio beamed at him. “Guess that means youʼre one of us now.” Us? 

Ignis laughed, a single note, then shook his head, trying not to appear as delighted as he truly felt. “Does she not know what I truly am?” 

“Havenʼt found a way to break it up to them gently yet,” Gladio chuckled. “Anyway, they ainʼt asking yet so thereʼs no need to tell. They just know youʼre a friend from the academe.” 

“The academe,” Ignis repeated in amusement, nodding. He supposed that was one way of putting it. “And what was that ball she spoke of?” 

“Oh that,” Gladio snorted, rolling his eyes. From inside his leather jacket, he produced the maroon envelope from earlier and gave it to Ignis, who flipped it open and read the gold text embossed onto the black card. “Itʼs a masquerade ball for House Amicitia. For Hallowsʼ Evening. We uh…we go back centuries, I guess, so the clanʼs gotten really big since.” 

“Amicitia…” Ignis frowned slightly in curiosity, running his thumb over the macabre emblem at the top center. It was a winged skeleton with far too many rib bones to either be bird or human, despite what the skull would have one think. As if whoever designed it just wanted to fill up the shield in the middle, one side of it peeled open to expose what laid underneath. “I canʼt say Iʼve heard of it.” Then again, it wasnʼt like he could remember much more of his old life except for its traumatic moments. 

“Probably started after you, then,” Gladio said. “Iris wants me to come. Do you wanna go?” 

Ignis whipped at his mark. “Me?” 

“Yeah!” Gladio was smiling as he nodded. “We could come in like…really stupid costumes like a pair of salt and pepper shakers.” He started to snicker at the thought. “Or like…the head part of the behemoth and the tail part of the behemoth.” 

“I think the fact that you think they are funny at all is what makes your joke funnier,” Ignis remarked. Gladio broke up with great bouts of laughter. He had to smile. He always felt good when he made him laugh. “But I would love to come. If you would have me.” The last time heʼd been to a ball…it had been nothing pleasant. The crowd earlier seemed friendly enough. Perhaps this would be fun, too. 

“Great!” Gladio grinned. “Itʼs in two weeks so we should probably start figuring out our costumes now.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” By then, they had finally reached the public parking where they left the car. 

“Youʼll see,” was all Gladio said, again with that wink. Should Ignis tell him that he didnʼt appreciate such secrets? He didnʼt want to make it appear that he distrusted him, though. 

And…he didnʼt want to admit that he had come to trust the mortalʼs good nature either. Enough to allow himself to feel…fragile. Threatened, just as Amicitia said once. 

“ _But if youʼre starting to feel threatened with me, you could just go whenever…_ ” heʼd said, then. And therein laid the problem. 

Ignis…didnʼt want to leave him anymore.

—

They drove away from the lights of the city, until those wide roads had given out into empty narrower ones illuminated only by a single file of streetlights on each side. Then they turned off to a service road and climbed briefly until they parked somewhere under the eaves of shrubs. “Right,” Gladio prompted him, switching off the engine. The world was suddenly…unnervingly still. “Here we are.”

Ignis…was scared. It was dark, they were alone and if Gladio could choose tonight to assault him, to bind him…

_If he assaults you, then destroy him,_ he told himself, even as he took Gladioʼs hand. It was a bit of a steep climb, the man had said. _If he tries to take advantage of you, then that only means he has enough sexual drive for you to ride on. Take him first!_ There was no need for him to be scared. This was his mission, after all. To be assaulted would make it far easier for him to do what he came here for. 

If only he could convince himself of that. If only he could lie to himself that he hadnʼt come to like the man and hope that he wasnʼt sinful enough to warrant a death sentence. The truth, of course, was that if Gladio attacked him, he would be completely heartbroken. Anyone could be a wicked man but not him—not his Gladio. 

It was a short hike, thankfully—a level ground would give Ignis a better advantage over the human. He watched the man put down the electric lamp he brought with them and find his place on the dirt. 

He patted the space next to him. “We still got…” Gladio looked at his glowing watch. “About ten minutes before the show starts. Cʼmon, settle down.” What show? The show where Ignis gets attacked by a mob? 

“Are we anticipating a performance?” Ignis sat down next to him, anyway. He would just have to be ready for anything. From his place on the earth, the dark skies opened up, framed by the silhouettes of leaves on one side and then the distant city below them. 

“Depends on your definition of a performance.” Gladio was smiling to the cheeks. He was excited, and Ignis couldnʼt catch a hint of wickedness about it. “But yeah, it could be,” he conceded. After a second, he went on again, “You know, I usually come here alone. Sometimes, Iʼd bring Iris with me but she canʼt always come since sheʼs so busy with school.” 

“How about your other friends?” Ignis asked. “Donʼt you have many?” 

“Sure, but…” Gladio shrugged, face pinched. “Did you have like…a special place you used to go to when you were alive? You know, like…a private corner or…” 

“A bedroom?” Ignis had none. His was a cell where he could not be hidden. 

“Not necessarily.” Gladio scratched his head. “Put it this way,” he spread his hands to the view, “this is my special place. If I wanna get away for a little, this is where I go. So itʼs like—” 

“An escape.” 

Gladio beamed at him, pointing to him. “Yeah, ‘xactly! You know, where I can just be myself…catch my breath and all. This is mine.” He patted the earth. “But it only works ‘cause Iʼm the only one who knows about this place.” 

Ignis frowned. “Until you brought me and Iris here. That sort of defeats the purpose now, doesnʼt it?” If he ever had a hiding place like this in the past…Ignis thought he would guard it with his life. 

“You donʼt get it, do ya?” Gladio chuckled at him, smile bright. “‘cause I donʼt mind you knowing. Youʼre welcome to my special place any time.” Him? But he was an intruder. Unless… 

Ignis started to laugh, shaking his head at Gladio. 

“What!” the man asked, laughing along. 

“Have you forgotten, Gladio?” Ignis sighed. “I am a daemon! I am a creature of darkness, sent to punish wicked mortals.” 

“See, if you hadnʼt reminded me, I would have forgotten,” Gladio told him. “Until then, I was just thinking…thereʼs this friend I have who I really like,” Ignis nearly jumped in his surprise, “and heʼs really smart and I think heʼs funny, too. And sure he stole my first kiss but…” He shrugged. Wait, that was his first…? “But hey, he apologized and…he respected me for my boundaries and…” Gladio smiled. “And Iʼm really grateful for him.” _For_ him… 

“Which is weird, huh?” Gladio laughed shyly, turning to the beep of his phone. “I shouldnʼt be this happy meeting a daemon but…thatʼs why I havenʼt been thinking about you that way. Iʼll figure things out when I get there. Hey, Iʼm gonna switch the light off, okay? Itʼll ruin the experience.”

“Of what?” Ignis sputtered dumbly. Would he be assaulted in the dark? As if his daemon eyes werenʼt gifted to see through shadows. 

_Oh, come off it, Ignis! As if he would still attack you._ Gladio had said he was smart and funny…not young and beautiful. Gladio appreciated him for the company he provided and not what his body could give him. 

“There! Did you see?” 

Ignis had been staring at Gladio for too long, he neglected that he was brought there for a purpose. He followed his line of sight, found himself looking at the empty skies. 

Down his lower right, a streak of light. Wait. 

Ignis tensed suddenly. “Was that…a shooting star just now?” 

“Yeah!” Gladio laughed, full of twinkling joy. “The Somnid Meteor Shower peaks tonight. This isnʼt the best place to see it but the others have huge crowds in them and theyʼre too far.” Another streak towards the left. “There, did you catch that?” 

“I did.” Ignis couldnʼt believe it but he was matching his excitement. As if he hadnʼt been alive for hundreds of meteor showers…but imagine… 

That shooting star right there…could that be the first one he had witnessed with Gladio? _Their_ first shooting star. 

“Did you make a wish?” 

Ignis turned to his friend and shook his head. “Must I?” 

“Obviously!” Gladio nudged him brutally. “Itʼs what everyone does!”

“Every _mortal_ you mean.” Ignis nudged him back. “I am afraid that by the time the gods have finished granting all your wishes, there would be none left for us daemons.” 

Gladio let out a, “Pfft!” He poked him again with his elbow, gently this time. “Who cares? Those meteoroids donʼt care. And even politicians and capitalists wish on stars, yʼknow? They even donate to the temples of the Six!” 

Ignis laughed out suddenly. “Tell me about it!” 

“See?” Gladio was smiling at them again. “Cʼmon, make a wish.” 

“How silly—” 

“If the gods wonʼt fulfill your wish, then Iʼll do it.” 

Ignis snapped to him, staring at those amber eyes. “Y, you will…?” 

Gladio puffed his chest and smirked at him. “Try me.” Ignis would. 

He had faith in him, more than the gods. How should he do this, though? 

Ignis faced the skies, catching another line. What should he wish for, in the first place? He closed his eyes, tried to come up with anything. Any prayer, any sentence. 

An imagination, maybe, of him putting his head down on Gladioʼs shoulder, hand in hand with him as they watched the stars.

—

It was late by the time he and Gladio had arrived home. After a quick shower, and a quick look at his schedule for the next day, he put his head on his pillow and fell promptly asleep.

He didnʼt stir even when Ignis laid beside him on his shoulder, between his bulk and the wall, running his fingers over the swells of his pecs, his biceps, the shape of his beard and his lips. _How beautiful,_ Ignis thought, watching him sleep in peace. _How I wish I could preserve this._

“ _You wish?_ ” the air giggled. The skin on Ignisʼ back rose. He got up suddenly onto his elbow, wild eyes searching the long shadows of his fiery cell for his master. “ _I wonder…do you know this song, Ignis? It goes…_ ” He cleared his throat, preparing to sing it: “ _Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, like a daemon on the sly. Twinkle, twinkle, little star…how I wonder what you really are!_ ” 

The door flies open, heavy wood banging onto the rough concrete wall. He barely manages to get up from his bed when those powerful hands grab for his wrists and pin him to the sheets. “ _No!!_ ” This man is powerful, new and familiar at the same time. 

He wishes he hadnʼt looked and seen why: he has amber eyes, gazing at him like a predator, a huntsman ready to devour his kill for the night. “No,” he pleads, trying to shake him off but he is too weak. They feed him too little and use him too much. “No, please, Gladio…please not you!” 

A cry rips out of him; he is too tight but Gladio forces himself in. Ignis writhes in pain, kicking at the fire burning inside but Gladio doesnʼt relent. He has given himself to him, he is his. 

“Gladio—!” he chokes in his tears, forcing his knees apart if that will make the abuse easier. His bed is creaking, Gladioʼs heavy fruits are smacking against him. He will bruise, he will tear. “Gladio, please!!” he begs for one last time. He canʼt even look at him as he pounds him like a beast, snorting and grunting like an animal in heat. He feels like a battering ram inside him. Ignis has already come too much but his pain matters not to his conqueror. “Gladio… _Gladio!!_ ”

A terrible cry rips through him.

—

And for a solid beat of time, everything was darkness, everything was pain. In his shattered heart, his fractured wrists, the torn skin inside of him. Even his throat felt raw as he blared out a single note, whatever could encapsulate the deepest horrors of his soul.

When those powerful hands grabbed for his shoulders and pulled him to skin, Ignis quivered in disgust and lashed out his legs, pounding his fists on the back of his assaulter. For every time the man cried his name, he screamed back in hate and fear, trying to shake free from his prison. He canʼt do this again…they canʼt make him do this again!! 

“Ignis, itʼs gonna be okay!!” the man yelled to his ear. “I wonʼt hurt you, I wonʼt let them bind you!!” Those words…that voice… 

Those warm amber eyes gazing at him tinged with fear, his clumsy fingers, which have never touched a man, shaking as they felt his face. This was his Gladio. _His_ Gladio! 

“Whatʼs wrong?” He searched him for his terrors. “I, is it a nightmare? Is it something I said?” Always him, always blaming himself. 

Ignis flung his arms around his neck, hiding his eyes on his strong shoulder. His safe space. Those thick arms surrounded him, as well, and that warm hand beating a comforting rhythm upon his back. “Donʼt let me go…donʼt let me go back!” 

“I wonʼt,” His Gladio promised him, cradling him like a babe. “Youʼll stay here with me.” 

“Iʼll stay.” Ignis nodded, still trembling. “Please gods, let me stay…!” 

“You donʼt have to go if you donʼt want to,” Gladio assured him. “No oneʼs gonna make you. Iʼll fight them off if they make you. Remember what I said? These muscles are for protecting.” Protecting…yes. They would protect him. 

Ignis sobbed out his name and pulled him tighter, so Gladio could soothe him in hushes, telling him over and over that it was okay, it was going to be okay… 

The air giggled and sighed again. “ _You think the gods donʼt listen, do you? You think we donʼt watch. However…do you know what I think? I think youʼve forgotten what I told you before. Shall I remind you what it is?_ ” 

Ignis shut his eyes, trying to will the voice away. 

“ _What time forgets, the blood does not._ ”

—

Noctis hissed, rubbing the back of his head. “So now you think Adagiumʼs out to get you both.”

Ignis shook his head. “I donʼt know what to think.” He picked up his cup of brewed coffee and brought it to his lips. “It isnʼt like Ardyn to be quite so petty…but this is the first time I have ever shirked from my job.” 

They sat across each other in a booth of a 24/7 diner, the only patrons at 4 in the morning. Outside, the world was still the kind of blue that was yet to open its eyelids to the new day. 

“I thought you were doing your job, though?” Noctis raised his cup. “Now youʼre telling me you might be in love with this guy?” 

Ignis smirked, looking gray. “Am I not a daemon?” Daemons lie as a principle. 

“So maybe this wasnʼt the first time you shirked from your job either.”

He said nothing. 

“But this might be the worst.” 

Ignis sighed, returning the cup to his tabletop. “Perhaps? This is definitely the first time I was given such a warning, though.” 

“So whatʼre you gonna do?” Noctis leaned back to his seat. “You gotta finish the job. If you donʼt, thereʼs no way my uncleʼs just gonna let you back in Inferno like nothing happened.” 

Ignis shook his head, lost in the black pool in his cup. “I donʼt care.” 

“Donʼt care?” Noctis repeated. “ _You_ donʼt care if heʼll just make your existence disappear like that? After 400 years, Ignis!” 

“So what?” Ignis shook his head. “I would sell those 400 years for one more second next to my Gladio.”

“Oh gods,” Noctis groaned, falling back to his seat. 

“An existence without him is no existence at all,” Ignis said, gazing out to the brightening skies. “The void will be kinder.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter gets particularly heavy with the non-con, among others, but it will be the last. again: mind the tags!

“So? Are you gonna glamor it up or do it the normal way?” 

They had since given up on Gladioʼs thesis, having bored themselves out of their wits with another academic paper that was due that same night. Ever since, Ignis had been browsing the thick brochure of outdoor gear that Gladio had picked up on a whim while the man himself was clicking away on his laptop. 

Ignis flipped the glossy pages shut, stood up from the bed and put himself back in the empty seat next to his mortal, a dining chair that had since moved in permanently to the small bedroom. “That would depend largely on you,” he said, moving his elbow to the desktop so he could lean closer to the screen, and closer to Gladio. “In any case, did you find anything worthwhile?” 

“See for yourself.” Gladio seemed particularly proud of himself when he turned the machine towards Ignis. “Do you wanna be gods for a night?” As soon as he recognized the couple on the screen, though, Ignis agreed that he had every right to be. The picture he showed him was of a costumed couple, a man and a woman, the former dressed in red with elaborate horns and feathers, the latter in blue and white and a crown of feathers dusted with glitter. 

Ignis caught himself smiling brightly. “You mean for us to go as the Infernian and the Glacian.” How properly important of them. 

“This websiteʼs pretty great, they offer customization of whatever costumes they got.” Gladio was scrolling down the page again, as if Ignis was interested with the other details. “Rush chargeʼs a bit steep but Iʼd say itʼs reasonable. So, what do you say? Do you wanna go as the Infernian?” He clicked on an image of the costume so he could blow it up. 

Ignis snorted as he started to laugh, chin on his palm. “And who will you be, the Glacian? That sounds a little off for your size.” Though she and him were both quite buxom in their own rights. 

“Just thought youʼd be more comfortable that way since you work closely with the guy, right?” Oh, his Gladio. Always thinking about him.

Ignisʼ lips stretched out wider. He hummed in thought. While he was definitely more familiar with the colors and the physique of the Infernian, what good was a masquerade if one couldnʼt pretend to be something that they werenʼt? He was already playing human, imagining that he belonged to this humanʼs side. Why not take it a notch further? 

“No,” he corrected Gladio. “for that night, I shall be the Glacian.” He smiled. “For that night, I shall be among the Astral Plane.”

—

It was ridiculous, how much heʼd been waiting for this event. After those two nightmares, and the thought of the void, of being separated from his Gladio…he tried not to let it show but Ignis wasnʼt a fool, he wouldnʼt say with confidence he hid it all perfectly well.

The costumes arrived a week after he and Gladio had that conversation, in tough, cream boxes that were textured and embossed. His alone had a price tag worth more than himself, Ignis realized in hilarity, as he thumbed through the sequins, the pearls that turned out to be very nice fakes. That same evening, Gladio booked a room for two in a nearby hotel and even hired a couple of hands to help them in their intricate costumes. 

“If you had this much money lying around, why would you stay stuck here in this small house?” Ignis asked once as he returned to the dining table with a fresh glass of water. Barbecue was on the menu that night, with salad on the side and some leftover pasta. 

“Hey, donʼt diss,” Gladio laughed, stabbing at the little ribbons on his plate, coated in oil, tuna flakes and some herbs. “Most anyone my age who moves outta their parentsʼ houses has ta pay rent in apartments. So this small house?” He pointed to his table. “Is actually a huge thing. I donʼt even have enough to pay for it with my own money. It used to belong to Dad so I got it free.” 

“I see land is still a problem here around the city.” Ignis nibbled on the tender meat of his ribs. 

“I think some parts of city-livingʼs gotten better over the years.” Gladio started to count them off in his fingers. “Stable electricity, fast internet, medical advancements, food safety, et cetera. But everything else is either just as bad or getting worse.” Again with the fingers. “Real estate, class divide, capitalism, corruption among the church and the state, which is,” he shrugged, “oddly enough why we abolished the monarchy in the first place.” 

“I suppose humans will always be humans,” Ignis chuckled, cleaning his fingers on the napkin. Immoral and sinful, good at being bad. 

“Hey, but at least weʼre trying,” Gladio retorted, reminding Ignis suddenly of the gap between the two of them. “Thereʼs charities, renewable energy, people fighting for equality and better health care for the poor.” And there was Gladiolus Amicitia, as well. 

Ignis smiled. “Indeed. If anything…my evenings with you have certainly shown me that much.” 

He couldnʼt share the bed with Gladio that night, as had been his habit since…since. Gladio never complained about it so he never stopped, but that night was different. That night, he ran his fingers through the shining threads, the sparkling mask he was to wear over his eyes, pale blue ice shards framing the white material. For one evening, he and Gladio could disappear behind costumes and be someone else. No humans, no daemons, no light and dark—just gods taking the stage for the night.

—

Finally, the day of the ball. Gladio said to meet him in the hotel room at 6 in the evening, the blessed hour of the gods. With the sun still out, it would be painful for him to come out in the streets.

So Ignis appeared right inside the room, doubling up his glamor to hide his portal and make it seem as if heʼd just arrived late from another preoccupation. No one batted an eyelash, only greeted him in bows and an energy which seemed excited to see him. Excited to get on with their work. 

Gladio, of all, was the happiest to see him. Honey eyes and smile bright, he was already dressed in a black tank top, tucked into a pair of black trousers patterned with swirling deep brown velvet stuff. 

That was the most heʼd greeted him with before Ignisʼ assistants—his assistants!—would ask for him and help him strip. Their hands moved gently, barely even touching him, the intention being to dress him up and not the opposite. No grabbing hands, no clothes being ripped from him until he stood naked and defenseless. They let him keep his shirt on while they helped him into his silvery blue silk trousers, and then they asked him if he wanted to remove his shirt by himself or if he would like some help. Imagine—him being asked for his permission! 

He wanted to laugh. Ignis wanted to laugh and to cry at the same time. He did it on his own, let someone take his clothes from him to be hung for safekeeping while they helped him into his silk shirt, the fabric cool against his warm aura, enough to make him want to sleep in it. Then came the layers of lace along his arms and his legs, the beautiful sequined shirt, sparkling blue and silver that ended around his biceps, and then the ribbons of chiffon along his back that would billow as he walked. 

And then finally, his crown—his mask, its feathers, and then the pearls that hung in tiers under his chin and behind his head. The whole ensemble was heavy and tedious—but so damn well worth it. 

Everyone seemed overjoyed as soon as heʼd taken his first spin, hands coming together, faces glowing. “Look at you two,” the captain of the team said as he turned first to Ignis and then to his partner, his hands clasped together under his chin. “Now youʼre both ready to get some believers out there!” 

“Ya think?” Gladio laughed, sounding a little nervous. Ignis turned to look at him finally. “Itʼs gonna be a bitch to eat in this thing, but I guess that ainʼt the point of a ball, is it?” he laughed. 

He was the Infernian, if he ever chose to be reborn as the most charming human the gods had ever stitched together. Four curling, stunted horns rose up from the side of his head, his hair framed by red, white and gold feathers to mimic the flames of the god. As for his shirt, red like wine with swirls of gold and silver threads and sequins, its collar was high and loose around the neck. It covered him to the cuffs, weighed down by rows of gold necklaces on his front and back and chains along his biceps, all leading from his collar. As if they needed to make his thick chest and broad shoulders, the girth of his arms more impressive. 

No, he was different from the Infernian. He was one he would be more than happy to serve for the rest of his existence, even without the lure of power. His amber eyes had disappeared behind his red mask but there was nothing that could have marred his beaming smile as he handed off his phone to the captain and asked him to take a picture of them. Them! 

Meaning him! Ignis stepped closer to Gladioʼs side when he reached for him, felt his spirit flutter when that hand cupped his biceps and pulled him closer. 

“Okay,” the captain said, aiming the camera at them. “Both of you, say _trick or treat!_ ” 

“Trick or treat!” Ignis chorused with Gladio, the last word reshaping his smile. He couldnʼt remember the last time his lips stretched to his ears. 

He took the shot and handed the phone back to Gladio. Ignis couldnʼt keep himself from pressing closer to the mortal to inspect the result. Their first picture together! How strange…and also, how exciting! 

“We look like a hit,” Gladio laughed, dipping his head to everyone. “Thanks for all your help. Iʼll wire the 50% tonight.” 

“Much obliged, Mr. Amicitia.” The captain bowed deeply. 

And then, it was time to head off to the ball. 

“Weʼre lookinʼ great, yeah?” Gladio laughed quietly, both of them still looking at the picture even as they marched for the rideshare waiting for them at the front. Ignis couldnʼt stop obsessing over it. Their first picture…the first time he was going to a party! “You look amazing, Ignis.” 

Ignis whipped to him. “Truly?” 

Gladio nodded, all smiles. “You’re gonna give the goddess herself a run for her temple.” Such high praise… 

For the first time, ironically enough, Ignis felt his cheeks burning. And the attention Gladio was dressing him in, as well as the width of his smile, wasnʼt helping. How should he behave…? 

He elbowed him on his side, smiling shyly, causing Gladio to jump and laugh. “The gods are real. You would do well to take caution with your words.” 

Gladio scoffed. “As if sheʼd complain if someone like you took her place.” Astrals, will he never stop? “I bet the gods are lookinʼ forward to retirement, too.” 

“With heathens like you, who wouldnʼt?” Ignis retorted. Gladioʼs guffaw filled the empty lobby. This was probably his proudest moment—making his favorite human laugh so loud, eyes were turning to them. 

From the hotel, the event was only a 15-minute ride away, in a building that looked about as luxurious as a jewelry shop on the outside. 

And as majestic as the richest manʼs house on his own island on the inside. Polished walls, chandeliers everywhere, polite faces waiting on them everywhere they turned. The air was ripe with mingling perfume and the active murmur of laughter and socialization. The wine was sweet in his mouth. 

And everyone…everyone looked just as spectacular, in flowing gowns and capes, sharp suits and towering headdresses. No one was about to be outshone tonight. 

“Hey, relax,” Gladio laughed, patting him lightly on the hand around his arm. Ignis hadnʼt noticed how tightly heʼd been hanging onto him until his friend had pointed it out. “Just relax, no oneʼs gonna bite you here. Iʼll bite ‘em back if they try,” he jested. 

“Of course,” Ignis forced a laugh, easing the tension around his fingers. “My apologies, I must have simply gotten too excited.” 

“Youʼre a little out of breath, too.” How did Gladio notice these things? “Here, cʼmere.” With careful hands, so gentle despite their size, he turned Ignis to face him. “Forget about the crowd, just focus on me and breathe.” 

Breathe, he said. Ignis nodded, putting his mind to it. Tried to shut the cheer and the music out though it was a little difficult. It was like they already existed in his head and couldnʼt be banished. 

So he sought for his eyes again, locking into his warm coffee gaze from under his mask. Thought about his laughter, his touch, the tightness of his embrace and how he would tell him it was going to be okay. He was going to be okay… 

“Wanna know a secret?” Gladio rumbled, waiting for him to nod before he revealed it: “I dunno half the people in this room.” 

“No,” Ignis said in disbelief, then shared in his laughter. “But are these not your relatives?” 

“Apparently.” Gladio shrugged. “But thereʼs probably hundreds of them here, all those ten-times removed or what. So if you ask me,” he scratched his cheek under his mask, “aside from my mom and my sister and a few cousins, I might as well be a complete stranger here. Anyway, the wineʼs great. Want some more?” Yes. 

Perhaps more wine would help him settle easier. “I would love some more,” Ignis accepted. 

It got easier towards the night, Ignis told himself. The strange smiles were still strange but they were friendly enough, stopping only to exchange a few pleasantries and to compliment them on their choice of costumes. _Friendly_ , Ignis reminded himself, bending low to exchange cheek kisses with Iris, dressed as a black butterfly, and Mrs. Amicitia herself, dressed as a legendary war hero. _Polite._

_No one is out to get you here,_ he said as he accepted another glass of wine from one of Gladioʼs closer relatives, toasted to someoneʼs new life in someplace else. _Relax, and enjoy the night with Gladio._

The music stopped, and then changed to a more mellow tune, built mostly on strings. It was welcomed by a delighted applause, and then the room was shifting. 

Gladio excused them both from his relatives, then took him by the back of his waist. His waist! “Dʼyou know how to dance?” Dancing! 

“Iʼve seen it here and there,” Ignis answered, trying not to let his obliviousness show. Gladio was already leading him to the center of the room, though. Gods above, would they dance?! “ _Do_ you know how to dance?” Heʼd never danced before his whole life. 

“Eh, here and there,” Gladio confessed, tossing his head left then right. “Back when I was a teenager, I used to go to a lot of these kinds of parties so one time, my mom hired a dancing coach for the whole family. Dad and I hated it.” He laughed. “Martial arts were more our thing but we couldnʼt stand to disappoint Mom so we went along with it. Been ages since I danced but…” He shrugged. “Could try again.” 

“With…” Ignis felt so embarrassed that he couldnʼt bring himself to say it. 

So Gladio put on a friendly smirk and asked him, “May I have this dance?” Oh Gods, he did ask him. 

Ignis had no choice, anyway, he was already moving his hands in position—one on Gladioʼs shoulder, the other a little to the right in the humanʼs hand. But even if he did, he would have still said, “Yes, I would love that.” He shifted closer to Gladio when that hand on his back pressed a little harder. He held his breath. 

And then they were spinning, and so was the entire room. Twirling with the rising crescendo of the violins, like planets that surrounded them in orbit. They were the gods to which these celestial beings were drawn, the Infernian and the Glacian creating galaxies in their midst. 

“By the way, before you get really impressed with me,” Gladio would break the illusion with his candor, “this is literally the only dance I remember.” They started to laugh again. “And I feel like Iʼm gonna step on your foot any time now!” 

“Itʼs much more than I know!” Ignis shared, feeling his mask bite on his cheeks, the wider he smiled. “This is the first time Iʼve ever danced in my whole life.” 

“As…what you are now or?” 

“Even in the past.” Ignis shook his head, “Iʼve never been this happy before. Until you. Gladio…” 

“Oh yeah?” Ignis wished he could have seen his face completely when he grinned, though he did feel that grip on his hand tighten just a little. “Iʼve never felt like asking anyone to dance. Until you, Ignis.” Him…he was the first… 

He wished he could hug him. Maybe if it werenʼt for their elaborate masks, the eyes that watched, he would have. Gladio always knew how to make him feel good. Feel better. 

At the end of the song, everyone stopped to applaud each other—everyone except the both of them, confined in their own world as they were. 

Gladio did put their hands down, though. So he could move his ones to the back of Ignisʼ waist, holding him close. Ignis couldnʼt find a different place to rest his own hands so he left them on his chest. While he beheld those beautiful amber eyes…or were they the ones beholding him…? 

“Uh,” Gladio cleared his throat. “U, umm…” He pulled him nearer still. “I, Ignis—” 

The lights turned low, a polite round of applause rising up in the air. The music was gone. 

When Gladio turned to look over his shoulder, Ignis followed his line of sight, where they landed on the stage on the far side of the room. A man had just vacated his place behind a podium there, so that there was nothing else to see but an image being cast by a light high up the white wall. An emblem of a winged skeleton that was both, or neither, a bird and, or a human. With a shield on its chest, one side of it exposed. Always watching. A permanent herald of death upon his head. 

It was there. Ignis gasped, stumbling back away from the man who held him. It was there all this time! Still cursing him, even beyond the grave! 

“Ignis?” Gladio asked, grasping him by his arms. “Ignis, what is it?” 

“The crest!” Ignis whipped to him, seeking some form of protection in those amber eyes that seemed to flicker with the flames of torches. “What is it doing here? Why do you have it?” 

“That one?” Gladio chuckled suddenly, running his thumb over his lips. Ignis flinched and turned away. “My dear, itʼs the family crest.” 

“Donʼt touch me like that,” Ignis quailed. “You donʼt know—” —what it did to him— 

“You _dare?_ ” Gladio snarled, his rough hand tightening around his chin as he yanked him closer, startling him. His breath reeked of tobacco and rum as he sneered at him, “You shameless whore! You sold yourself to me, I own you! And I will touch you however way I want!” 

“Gladio,” Ignis winced, trying to shake free from his grasp but he was too strong, too cruel for him. “Let me go, youʼre hurting me.” 

“And what of it?” Gladio cackled, a golden tooth peeking from his drunken grin. “So what if I like to hurt you? What if I like to see you cry?” 

“Gladio,” Ignis wailed, begging him to stop with the shake of his head. He was scaring him. After all that he promised him…! 

“Youʼre mine, Ignis,” Gladio reminded him, amber eyes alighting in glee. “You’re my property. And I will do with you as I like!” With merciless strength, he shoved him back. 

Straight into the arms and the hands of the beasts waiting to devour him. Their cruel laughter, their alien smiles. 

“No,” Ignis gasped, shaking wildly as they grabbed at his clothes, his beautiful clothes, and tore them from him, piece by piece. His precious pearls, his delicate lace. Gladio had said he looked beautiful in them. “No, please no!” A wanton tongue licked him up the side of his neck. He let out a scream, tried to escape but could not break free from the hands that spread his legs and fondled him. They were going to rape him. Oh gods, _they were going to rape him!_

He pulled out his blade and with his right hand, struck the man in front of him with an upward slash.

—

He didnʼt know, anymore, why he was here. Why he was still doing this—living in shadows, alone without a friend. Isolated, except for his dread, his helplessness.

His tears. They were touching him again; they would never let him go. Hands around his wrists and arms, pulling up his legs and ankles. Too weak to struggle, too tired to fight. 

A cold palm drew a line down his front, into his crotch. “My, my, Lord Deami—” 

Ignis cried when they forced a dick up his ass, pounding until they could fit their entire shaft through his passage. Even his body had chosen to betray him, spurting his seeds just after a couple of thrusts. 

“A fine whore youʼve found us here!” 

“He comes without even a second thought.” 

“Oh, I do like it when theyʼre needy!” 

“Have you seen these nipples?” A pair of fingers enclosed around his left one. Ignis whimpered, shutting his eyes and turning away, praying for the strength to bear everything. The pain, the humiliation. Someoneʼs hand had found its way inside him. A wet mouth suckled his other teat. He mewled. 

“Exquisite, that sound he makes!” 

“Has he never been raped before?” 

“Obviously, I raped him first,” Gladio snorted, earning great hoots from the room, the tinkle of glasses. Somewhere in the dark, there was music playing. 

Ignis tore his eyes wide open. Gladio was in this room. Somewhere, hiding as always. 

“Save me,” he whimpered to his ghost, pulling at his leather cuffs. 

“My lord, have you tried his mouth?” Gladio queried his friend politely. “Please, my lord, have the honor. Get him on his knees.” 

Ignisʼ knees landed on the rough ground, his hands bound behind him. A half-hard flesh came up to his face and on cue, he opened his mouth to receive the strangerʼs dick. 

“He opens up like a dog!” A roar of laughter, bottles clinking. 

“My, my, look at that cunt. Put a glass under him! I want to see how much he comes.” 

“ _If_ you can make him come.” More rowdy laughter. 

“My lord, watch and learn.” Iron fingers spread his cheeks open, wide enough for a hard shaft to pierce right through. Ignis screamed at the searing assault, his voice muffled by the flesh inside his mouth. 

“Oh! My lord, he feels simply _glorious!_ ” 

“Agreed. Not even my wife can move her tongue the way he does!” 

“Then I assume we have a deal?” Gladio was smiling. “After you come inside him, that is.” His generosity was celebrated by hoots and cheers. 

Ignis found him watching from the corner, a triumphant smirk on his face, his own hand rubbing his bulge under his trousers. This animal…after how he trusted him. He would kill him, he swore. No matter what abuse he threw at him, he would never lose. He would murder him if it was the last thing he did! 

_One day, you monster,_ he growled. _Just you wait…just you wait!!_

Ignis let out a wild scream, banishing the darkness that held him down by his hands and his feet. Someone had let out a curse, scrambling to their feet. He pulled out another blade through his magic and swung it angrily at his abuser. 

“Fuck!” 

Another blade, tinged in blue where his was red, blocked his steel. Deep blue eyes stared at him, both in shock and in fear. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” Noctis muttered. “What the _fuck_ , Ignis, what in Bahamutʼs shit was that all about?!” _Noctis?_

What was the grim reaper doing in the mansion? “I…” He looked around, finally. 

He was in a different place—bright, open. No walls to be found, everything exposed to each other—bed, TV, kitchen, the lounge set where he laid. 

Noctis was on top of him, still catching his breath. “You mind?!” Their blades were still connected in a deadlock. 

So Ignis dropped his blade, letting the air break it in crystals and reclaim it, the same way it did with Noctisʼ steel. 

The grim reaper whistled, dropping himself back to the solo seat at the end of his feet. “You know, I know Iʼm death personified but you are going to be the death of me, Scientia.” 

Finally Ignis sat up, staring at him. “What are you doing here?” 

“Correction:” Noctis raised his finger. “What are _we_ doing here?” He redirected the same digit to someone behind the couch. 

A blonde man sat facing his computer on the left side wall, humming to a nervous rhythm, chin on hand, knee vibrating, oblivious of them. Someone heʼd met just about two weeks ago. 

“Prompto?” 

“Weʼre in his studio apartment,” Noctis explained, drawing his attention again. “Look, I didnʼt know where to bring you, okay?” 

“How did you find me?”

“Code black,” Noctis answered, as if that cleared everything up. “It means an unusual daemonic activity. Every grim reaper within 3 kilometers of the scene has to drop whatever theyʼre doing and go to the location once they get a code black. I was there. I came in, saw you on the ground and fucking _Gladio_ on top of you—” 

“Was he raping me?” Ignis hissed, feeling his very spirit twist at the thought. His Gladio… 

Noctis stared at him in aghast. “What?! _No_ , fucking no, do you hear yourself?! Why—dude, he was protecting you!!” He flailed. 

“What?” Ignis exhaled, confusion pulling his brows down. Protecting him…why? How? That man in the shadows—

Noctis pulled his shoulders high to shrug. “I got the whole story late. I just saw you two surrounded by security and you had a knife in your hand and he was bleeding in his face.” 

“ _What?!_ ” Ignis started, shoulders rigid enough to snap his bones if heʼd been mortal. 

Noctis snorted. “Funny you should say that ‘cause apparently, you were the one who gave it to him.” Him… 

_Him?!_ Ignis stuttered, staring in disbelief. 

“Like I said,” Noctis huffed, getting comfortable with his elbows on his knees, “I got the whole story late. Witnesses said some video was playing when you suddenly fell to the ground. Gladio removed your mask and loosened up your shirt but then you started kicking and screaming. Then there was a knife in your hand and you cut his face.” The cruel grim reaper demonstrated it, holding an invisible blade, slashing upwards with a right hook. Ignis felt it pierce through him with a jump. 

“Like that,” Noctis went on. “Security came in to apprehend you,” he put his fingers to his chest, “I got the code black, but Gladio told everyone to stay back and give you some space. He was trying to calm you down, they said. Then we blacked everyone out and I pulled you out of the scene. The marshal dropped by to fill me in on the situation. I think the official story we implanted was…” He patted the back of his head. “Drunk bastard tried to attack you and then Gladio got in the way to protect you. Lies are half-truths, yʼknow?” He didnʼt care. 

“And G, Gladio?” Ignis wrung his hands on his silk pants. “Ho, how…w, where is he…?” That was all that mattered. 

The high-pitched trill of a device startled him. Prompto at the back jumped with his own gasp, nearly dropped his phone as he answered it and surged up to his feet. “I, Iris! How is he…” After a beat, he melted back into his seat, rolling backwards in it. “Thatʼs good to know, I was so worried,” he sang. “Where are you? Are you still at the hospi…eh?” Prompto blinked. “Gladioʼs home?”

—

He didnʼt wait for Promptoʼs call to finish or for Noctis to stop him. As soon as heʼd found out where Gladio was, he summoned up a portal and brought himself to the nearest corner of his house. Heʼd completely forgotten to don his glamor.

So by the time he got to the detached house, he was visible enough for Iris to catch just as she had stepped through the door. Ignis froze suddenly at the sight of the young Amicitia. 

The moment Iris noticed him, the worried lines on her face cleared up in surprise. “Iggy!” She was still in the black, fur-lined cocktail dress she wore as her costume. Without another breath wasted, she hurried to him even as he took a step back. A part of him thought he wanted to run away from the sister of the man he scorned. 

Too late—two hands latched onto his one and squeezed firmly, brows arching in deep concern. “Are you okay now?! You were in shock when we brought you to the hospital!” So he was. 

“I—” Ignis cleared his throat, fiddled with his glasses. “Of course. Thank you, as always, for looking out for me.” 

Iris scoffed and rolled her eyes. “As if we couldnʼt. The whole time they were treating Gladdy, youʼre the only one he was concerned about. As in we kept having to look in on you in the next ward until your officemate came to pick you up.” 

“I, I see.” Ignis nodded. He wished heʼd been there, in the ward all right, and not in some… “Truly, Iʼm…sorry for the trouble.” 

“As long as youʼre okay,” Iris sighed deeply, squeezing his hand again. “Look, Iʼm sorry for what our guest did, that was really, super, unnecessary. I wish he hadnʼt bumped into you and gotten you involved but…” She shrugged. “Itʼs already there.” 

“I, too, wish things hadnʼt gone south tonight. It was a good party.” Until his trauma got the better of him. “And you, how are you feeling?” Ignis was only pretending (always pretending) to care, speaking the lines that they wrote for him but he really did feel concerned for the young Amicitia. 

Especially when she let out a deep sigh and forced a smile on her face. “Gladdyʼs mostly okay. Thereʼs going to be a scar on his face but his eye isnʼt damaged. The worst is over…so…” More nodding. “Iʼm…Iʼm okay, Iggy.” 

“Itʼs a relief to know,” Ignis replied honestly. 

“Gladdyʼs sleeping now, though,” Iris said, starting towards one of the vans parked just outside the house, keeping their hands together. “Can I drop you off?” 

“Thereʼs no need, I brought my car with me.”

“Okay.” Iris smiled. Then to his surprise, she flung her arms around him and squeezed briefly. As if he hadnʼt been the cause of her brotherʼs injury. He put his own hand behind her, patting her the way he remembered Gladio did him. 

Finally, she left, and he walked away, back to where he came from around the corner. From there, he finally remembered to put on his glamor before he opened a portal that brought himself straight into Gladioʼs house. 

Everything was as it had always been whenever Gladio would be asleep and he would be left awake to watch him closely, hoping things were different. The living room downstairs was barely touched, there were dishes left soaking for the night in the kitchen. 

The bedroom was dark, their usual mess still littered along his computer table. The early night cast a blue veil upon Gladioʼs profile where he slept with his back turned to the window, facing Ignis as he stepped in. The wound was the first thing he saw—it was long and angry, held together by little tapes on his forehead and his cheek. An accusation of his weakness. 

How could he have done this, he thought. Fought the man who was only trying to protect him, just doing what he promised. Before he removed his costume and replaced it with his usual blazer look, heʼd been nearly incapacitated to see the drops of blood on the fabric. In his nightmare, they were stripping him to enjoy their abuse but in reality, he was only helping him breathe. 

He came to his knees in front of him, spirits heavy with regret. Despite what Ignis had put him through, he still slept peacefully like a babe. _My Gladio,_ he called him, raising a hand to touch his cheek lightly—

Caught by a swift left, vice-like and warm. His fingers were firm around his wrist but not nearly enough to be painful. No, his Gladio wouldnʼt hurt him. When those amber eyes opened, he knew now how different they were. Where his nightmare had flames that always burned, his was like melting caramel, promising only the goodness of things. 

He smiled, and mumbled drowsily, “Thought it was you.” Put his hand down to the side of his neck where he couldnʼt hurt him. “You okay now, then?” he whispered. Him. Him again. 

Ignis couldnʼt control his tremors when he started to sob as he nodded, too guilty to speak, his thumb caressing the hair at the back of his neck in what he hoped was a soothing motion. He was a daemon, though. What did he know about these things? About protecting and being protected, about caring and being cared for… 

He brought his crying eyes to Gladioʼs bicep, letting his tears flow as he wailed. He was too tired to think about anything right now. His past, his present, his hopes and regrets. When those arms wrapped themselves gently around him and started to rock him, he decided that for now…and maybe for the better part of his forever, he wanted only to pour out everything with his tears.

—

“S, so…” he began uncertainly, after they spent an inordinate amount of time just looking at each other, feeling their hair through their fingers, their skin on their thumbs. “W…what happened? D, do you…remember everything? Anything…”

Gladio nodded. They were back in his bed, lying face to face, their legs tangled. His wound, they kept off the pillow. “Kinda weird. I remember two things.” Ignis nodded. “One of them felt like a dream. We were havinʼ a good time when someone bumped into you and made you spill your wine on his costume. Then he got really angry, grabbed a steak knife from somewhere and threatened to hurt you. So I got in the way and received the attack.” 

“Thatʼs…” Ignis was brushing his sideburn idly with his thumb. “Well, thatʼs going to make it to the papers for sure.” 

“But the other one I remember…I know itʼs real,” Gladio went on, tracing his lips. Ignis forced out a shudder…or tried to but couldnʼt. With honey eyes like those, that gesture that used to disgust him had turned sweet and soothing. “You were looking at the family crest like…like it was some damn curse,” Ignis closed his eyes and nodded, a vague replica of it hanging over an archway carved in his memory forever, “and then you suddenly fell, like you were having a hard time breathing. So I took off your mask and loosened your shirt…then you suddenly started screaming and—” 

“I cut you with my knife,” Ignis finished. He couldnʼt take another repetition of this horror story. “Oh Gladio, Iʼm so sorry,” he whispered, brushing his cheek. “I didnʼt know…I didnʼt know what I was doing. Iʼm so terribly sorry!” 

“You were freaking out, you were hysterical,” Gladio explained, voice rising steadily with alarm. “No matter what I said, you wouldnʼt focus on me and listen to my voice.” 

“No,” Ignis shook his head, “because I was trapped in the past and you couldnʼt reach me there.” 

“Past…” Those thick brows quivered. “You…remembered something?” 

Ignis chuckled dryly, smiling in the same way. “I remember much more than I let on. Not everything mind…but enough to remember why I became what I am today.” He looked into Gladioʼs amber gaze, found them waiting… 

“I lived a poor life, Gladio,” he began. “I do not recall the circumstances perfectly but…I remember being told that I was born at the back of a coach. And that my mother died days after I was born, due to an infection caused by the unsanitary conditions of my birth. I remember somehow that our family fell from grace.” 

“When the monarchy was overthrown,” Gladio stepped in kindly, “House Scientia was one of the biggest casualties ‘cause of your connections to the throne. Actually, House Amicitia shouldnʼt even be alive now but…” He shook his head. “People needed money…and we _had_ money.” 

“You must remember, though,” Ignis said, “that I was born some 400 years ago. So my family fell from grace even before the rest of the house went the same way.” 

Gladio nodded. “Sorry for interrupting.” 

Ignis shook his head, smiling when he pressed the tips of his fingers lightly on his full lips. “I grew up mostly with my father and his brother. I never had the chance to be properly educated but they did what they could, with some books and some spare time. In the meantime, I looked for jobs about as soon as I could walk. I worked in the kitchen once, made my way to a pub where…I began to receive some unwanted attention.” Gladioʼs hand jumped on his cheek. 

“I was 16,” Ignis went on to explain. “Barely out of youth. And the men back then hardly cared about hiding their immoralities, but they gave me an idea. So at 17, I sold myself to a brothel.” 

“Ignis!” Gladio gasped, staring in aghast. 

“The money was good, Gladio,” Ignis told him. “It was more than what Iʼd been able to put down on the table my whole life. For the first time, we had food in our stomachs…” 

“B, but in exchange, y, you…” 

“I did what I had to do,” Ignis said, as if to soothe those haunted eyes. “I was young, I was often called beautiful…and I could be flexible. I took both men and women, I could perform both as a man and a woman.” His eyes fell to Gladioʼs collarbone. “That…that was how I met him.” 

“Who…?” 

“My master,” he revealed, looking him in the eye again. “He used to come every weekend, sometimes two days in a row. Very exacting but very generous. So I made sure I became everything that he wanted in a whore…and when I succeeded, he bought me out of the brothel. Took me to a mansion a whole dayʼs ride away from the city, somewhere deep inside the forest. He said he would train me. I thought it was for an apprenticeship but…” He shook his head. 

“I thought wrong,” Ignis continued. “I realized too late what he meant. He put me in a cell underground and told me that I could sleep there while they were preparing my bedroom. He said he would call for me when he needed me but he never did. The only visitor I received was a tray of food everyday.” His eyes fell again. “Until…one night, he came. And raped me.” Doors banging, his screams echoing in his tiny cell. Still there in his head, never to be forgotten. 

Gladio pulled his eyes shut, breath shaking. 

“Everything changed for me that night…” Ignis trailed off, watching the bitterness flood his humanʼs face. “But I should stop.” 

“Youʼve kept this inside you all this time?” Gladio hissed, opening his eyes. “Four-hundred years?” 

“My reason for being.” Ignis smiled. “It has been 400 years, Gladio. Four centuries. Can you fathom how much time that is?” 

“Not nearly enough for you to forget all about it.” Gladio frowned. “I want to hear it all. Whateverʼs trapping you in that damn past. I wanna know how scary it was for you…I wanna know how to calm you down.” To lighten his trauma. 

How could Ignis refuse? Besides, he owed him this much, for what he did in exchange for his kindness. “The training,” he went on, then, “was to make me his perfect little whore. He had…specific demands that he never quite managed to indulge in while I was under the protection of the brothel. He wanted me ready to receive him at any given moment, no matter what he wanted from me.” 

“Y, you never…” Gladio flicked his tongue along his lips, like he was reconsidering his words. “D, did you…think about fighting back?” His sweet, precocious Gladio… 

“Of course,” Ignis said. “Of course I did. And of course I lost. Every time. My pain, you see, and my fear…he delighted upon them. If I obeyed, he won. If I resisted, he won still. Hope had burned out of me faster than a matchstick. And then when he decided that my training was complete, he opened the doors to his friends.” 

“Fuck,” Gladio snarled under his breath, squeezing his eyes tight. 

“He became my new brothel,” Ignis went on. Gladio asked for this so he would give it to him. “To be used exclusively by him and his friends, however and whenever they wanted. He would bring me to private parties where they could molest me and abuse me as a part of the entertainment. And then they could come over whenever they had an itch to scratch.” 

“And no one helped you,” Gladio growled, glaring through the pain Ignis was inflicting on him. “Not a single bastard even tried to take you away from there.”

“Business connections meant everything to my master and his friends,” Ignis explained. “I was a part of the barter. Another chip in the pile. That…that was what he bought me for.” 

“How long did…?” 

“Five years,” Ignis revealed. Gladio groaned, features contorted. He tried to smooth out those lines with his touch. “Long enough for them to scrape out every shred of hope I had in me. Until I decided I wanted it to end. I found an opportunity in another one of my masterʼs exclusive parties. A fight for the privilege of using me first had devolved into a war among friends. I escaped, tried to run to the gates but it was too far and I was already too weak. But I would rather die than go back inside…so thatʼs what I did. I found the garden shed, lit up the candles I found there…and set it alight with me inside.” He smirked at the turning point in his story. “When I regained consciousness, I was already in Inferno, getting punished for my deeds.” 

“ _Your deeds?_ ” Gladio snarled. “They fucking abused you, those bastards fucking treated you like an animal!”

“Supposedly, I should have just waited for them to kill me first,” Ignis chuckled, still brushing his thumb on his Gladioʼs cheek. “Morality is such a strange concept. Oh, but you should have seen the faces on those daemons when I laughed at them. When I told them there was nothing they could do to cause me more pain than I experienced in life.” A memory that still made him smile. “They had to stop what they were doing, call in someone else to ask for advice. They escalated my case, then…until finally, I met with my new master in his throne room. His Accursedness Adagium.” 

“You mean…” Gladioʼs brows furrowed. “That, that guy in the…Cosmogony books whoʼs supposedly the master of darkness?” 

“Heʼs real, Gladio,” Ignis chuckled. “Heʼs not as fearsome as the stories would have you think. But he was awesome enough for me to decide to sell my soul to him. To become a daemon of his bidding. An incubus, who takes the lives of mortals through their sexual appetite. It was the perfect recipe for me to exact my revenge, on every one of my abusers. They dream about breaking me every single night, not knowing how I was slowly killing them with every lustful fantasy. And then on their last nights,” another wistful smile, “they would see me walking in their death room, young and beautiful, unmarred…except for the scars on my face from when I burned myself. And they would die screaming. Every one of them.”

“So you got the bastards,” Gladio said. Well… 

Ignis frowned slightly. “Well, no…I missed one. The worst monster of them all.” 

“The guy who bought you.” 

“And sold me,” Ignis nodded, meeting Gladioʼs eyes, “again and again for his material gain. Unfortunately, before I returned to the world of the living, he died out at sea. The ship was only found recently, I heard, at the bottom of the Cygillan Ocean.” He sighed dramatically. “So there goes my revenge.” 

“Iʼm sorry.” 

Ignis laughed again, shaking his head. He traced the line of his beard with his fingers. “I…I apologize as well…for attacking you because I could not come to grips with myself. You have suffered because of me…and yet despite that…you…” He was holding him. 

“Ignis,” Gladio breathed. “Ignis, those were five years. I bet itʼs like a blink in the eye now but…but five years? Full of nothing but abuse?” His hand alighted gently on Ignisʼ cheek. “Iʼm just…Iʼm just glad youʼre here now. I donʼt know if itʼs right for me to say that, after what you had to go through but…” 

Ignis hushed him, shaking his head again, putting a finger on his lips. “I am here…and so are you. Whatever happened…doesnʼt change the fact that we are now here, together.” 

Gladio nodded. “Okay.” 

Ignis nodded back, settling deeper into their shared pillow. “Iʼm fine now, Gladio. Thanks to you.” 

Gladio attempted a smile for that. “Sure you donʼt need these big arms?” Could Ignis ever be dumb enough to refuse? 

Ignis wriggled closer, and accepted that warm embrace, let it pull him deeper into Gladioʼs chest. Four-hundred years, he realized. That was how long it took for him to be held by a man like this. 

“You’re okay now,” Gladio whispered with his lips on Ignisʼ forehead. “You’re fine.” He was. 

In his arms, he was. “I know, Gladio,” he said, smiling into his strong heart. “I know.”


	7. Chapter 7

“And with that…letʼs pack up!” Whistles and cheering as the crowd gave another round of applause to each other, bowing to whoever they saw. Their director stood in the middle of their ring so she could turn around as she clapped and dipped her shoulders. “Thanks very much as always for your hard work.” 

A chorus of _you, toos_ as they started to disperse. Some stayed to thank her personally, others whose last day in the filming it was lingered for a memorable selfie with the short woman. 

Gladio went back to his tent to start packing, smiling and waving to those who clapped him on his shoulders as they passed him. 

“Good work today, Gladio,” Holly stopped by for her own greeting. Gladio took the time to straighten up from his gym bag on the ground so he could bow to her. “Two days to go and youʼre a free man!” 

“Yeah, I sure am gonna miss this lot.” He tossed his hand to the flap of the tent. “This is a fun crew! Wouldnʼt mind going back for some reshoots if you got any.” 

“Iʼll count on that but donʼt push it,” Holly said, crossing her arms over her jacket. “You sure your face is okay now?” 

Gladio winked with his left eye. It felt strange now, like he was literally pulling his skin…more deliberately than before but aside from a few heads turning and then those accidental scratches that brought tears to his eyes, he was living a normal life. The wound was healing nicely, the physician said, when he dropped by her clinic yesterday. 

“Wouldnʼt be out here if I wasnʼt,” Gladio added later, hoisting the sling of his bag over his shoulder. “Donʼt worry too much. My med cert looks good, yeah?” 

Holly nodded several times to show him she understood. “Okay, if you say so. Got plans today?” 

Gladio gestured over his shoulder. “Library down the block.” 

“More thesis stuff? Howʼs that going, by the way?”

“Itʼs…” Gladio moved his head up and down in a pensive motion. “Good. Doing a lot better than I thought.” He and Ignis chipped at it again last night, finally finishing the first draft of the last part, in time for his review with his advisor later afternoon. 

And then they moved to the bed and just held each other. Sometimes talking, sometimes just…listening. To the silence, their breaths, whatever else there was to listen to. He knew Ignis hadnʼt been a stranger to his bed since that night he made a mistake of offending him. He didnʼt mind sharing his space as long as he didnʼt do it naked but since the masquerade ball…since then, Ignis hadnʼt been waiting for him to fall asleep before he joined him. He went, anyway, because Gladio invited him. 

And now his wound was finally starting to scar. People often asked him if he wouldnʼt do anything about it but…to Gladio, there was nothing he wanted to hide about it. Not when it came from Ignis…though the memory that had brought it hadnʼt been a good one. But there was no reason for him to be ashamed of the injury he sustained from protecting his daemon friend. If they were still just friends but whatever. 

“Thatʼs good to know.” Holly sounded genuinely delighted to hear the good news. “Well, have fun being educational, then.” 

“Thanks,” Gladio said, both of them tipping their heads to each other. Then they parted ways, him heading for the pedestrian crossing to wait for the light to turn green. 

In 10 minutes, he would be marching up the national library and then hurrying into the lift towards the newspaper section. 

He put down his heavy bag by his seat as he pulled himself closer to the public laptop and clicked on the catalogue system to start his search. “What is it?” he muttered to himself as he filled in the keywords. “Shipwreck, Cygillan Ocean…” 

Not exactly research for his thesis but research about daemons all the same. One particular daemon, in fact. Truth be told, heʼd never been inclined to look into the life of one Ignis Stupeo Scientia before, not even after they became very good friends and he began to be comfortable about his closeness to him. But after that night, he had to wonder—who was this bastard who abused Ignis? If he was rich enough to buy a human being, he should be big enough to make it to the headlines. 

He clicked _Search_. Several articles filled the page. _RV Crepera Wreckage Found Nearly 400 Years After Tragedy_ , said the first title. Bingo. 

It was a quick read that gave him a brief history of something he never cared for in the past. The _RV Crepera_ was a merchant ship from some 4 centuries ago that had been bound for Niflheim when it caught fire, likely from the inside. Overloading was also a problem, and of its 25 crewmen, only 6 survived. It was found 3 years ago, along with some artifacts that gave a clue about its trade: Insomnian ore, building stones from Balouve, Adamantoise shells… 

_Heavy stuff,_ Gladio thought, looking at the pictures. Some souvenirs from the past also survived like bottles, jars, pocket watches. 

He stopped at one, heart skipping a beat at the close up photo. The lid had been split in two, the other part missing, and the glass underneath completely gone. The gold…bronze, whatever the rich man valued, had since been tarnished by water and the carved image was barely recognizable. 

Unless, of course, youʼd seen it most of your life. Practically grew up with it. Like Gladio had, whose eyes zeroed in familiarly to the skull, the curve of the wings, the cut of the shield… 

“Amicitia?” he mumbled to himself, heart jumping. Why…? 

He put in a new search query: Amicitia, Crepera. 

The results were greatly varied. His fatherʼs death was at the top, and then Queen Creperaʼs. The rest of the ones that followed were way off the mark, too. Forty years ago, there had been a film about Queen Crepera where a Di Amiticia performed the leading role. It was a flop. 

Gladio put his back to the chair, mumbling to himself again. “Amicitia…Di Amiticia…” His heart was beating harder. He hadnʼt always been active in the sphere of family gatherings, but being part of the main branch, he knew a bit of history to survive a pop quiz. He arranged the search results by dates, found they were all fairly recent. He wasnʼt getting the results he needed because he couldnʼt hit the right query. Only one way to find out. 

_Fuck, Amicitia, what are you doing?_ he asked himself as he shouldered his bag and made his way to the reception to ask for assistance. _You know what you might find, right?_ Leisure ships didnʼt become popular until 100, maybe 200 years ago. Which meant that the RV Crepera wasnʼt likely to have more than the crewmen onboard. If the trade was mostly metal and masonry, then that was probably what caused the overloading. Even now, construction was a lucrative business, and if he had been a greedy businessman, heʼd probably want to make the most out of a single route… 

An intern led him inside a glass room where they kept their older periodicals. The ones that were more sensitive with age and hadnʼt been digitized yet. For instance, if they were already 400-years old. 

“If you need any more assistance, Iʼll just be at the magazines section.”

“Sure, thanks.” Gladio was already working on the protective films on the lighted table when he smiled and nodded at the young woman. It would be a lot easier this way, he thought. He had the exact year RV Crepera sunk and newspapers were shorter, less frequent back then—

_TERROR AT SEA: RV Crepera Sinks_

Gladio gaped at the headlines—this was it. He could barely keep his nerves to himself when he started scanning the text with the tip of his finger.

He stopped and read when he finally found a familiar anchor: _…bearing special ores from the Crown City, building stones from the Balouve Mines and the most coveted Adamantoise Shells. Such great blow to our beloved nation is further aggravated by the unfortunate loss of Lord Crailas De Amicicia, who was on board to oversee the success of the trade. A fine merchant who contributed to the prosperity of our kingdom, he will be greatly missed._

Amicitia…Di Amiticia…De Amicicia… 

It was there, it was all there. The progression, his history unfolding. 

When he exhaled, his breath shook. He flipped on, going further backwards in time. If he had completely missed his chance when he came back up the surface, it couldnʼt have been much longer from… 

At the bottom section of the next paper, he saw the drawing of something large burning while witnesses pointed in shock. _TRAGEDY STRIKES KINGʼS SHIELD_.

—

There was a BOGO promo in the pizza parlor closest to him, so Gladio put in an order and waited for the delivery guy while he sat in his computer chair, scrolling up and down his thesis document just for the sake of pretending he wasnʼt…nervous? About meeting him—

Fuck this, of course he was nervous! Who wouldnʼt be in his position? He was just…well, it was better than dwelling and doing nothing…not that he was doing _something_ , anything in particular but… 

Gladio cursed between his teeth, raking his hair up, then pressing his fists to his lips, staring nervously at the text. Then he heard the door shut, feet coming up the steps. 

Ignis leaned through the doorway, smiling. “Hey.” He never finds out how he comes in, only that he was already there. “Pizzaʼs here.” Strange how a face could both fill his heart and break it at once. 

A part of Gladio wished the ground would just open up and swallow him right then and there as he started towards Ignis. It took everything in him not to wring his hands and break his fingers, to smile back at the daemon who opened the boxes, took a long sniff at the warm food and turned to smile at him. 

“Something wrong?” Ignis asked, his voice so gentle. 

“Umm…” When Gladio spoke, he was worried the heavy thumps of his heart would be heard through his mouth. 

Ignis canted to his head slightly, pushing out his lower lip to frown so cutely. “Review didnʼt go well?” He had his hands braced at the edge of the table, the toes of his right foot tapping a nameless rhythm on the floor. 

Gladio came alive suddenly. “No!” Even tossed in a laugh as he stepped beside Ignis who reached for his hand and gripped it firmly. He wanted to pull away but he wanted to pull _him_ in, too. But he didnʼt want to… 

“It was great, my advisorʼs really impressed,” Gladio went on, bringing a happy look on his friendʼs face. “Itʼs…” He shook his head. “Itʼs been going great thanks to you, Ignis. Honestly, the…the help you give me…itʼs…itʼs not just your knowledge, yʼknow? The time you spend with me…really…inspires me to just…” He shrugged. Ignis was beaming. His heart was ready to burst. “Keep at it. Yʼknow, it, it really encourages me that youʼre doing this with me and Iʼm really grateful for that.” 

“My sweet man…” 

“But thereʼs something I gotta tell you,” Gladio exhaled, racing his mind to it. “Okay? And y, you wonʼt…” Was it proper to tell him that he wouldnʼt like it? “Itʼs…it ainʼt nice,” was all he ended up saying. 

Ignisʼ smile shifted at that. His brows quirked, then he persisted with his good mood with an easy laughter. “Come now, Gladio. At 400 years, I assure you Iʼve seen everything.” 

“Not this.” Gladio smiled bitterly, lips pressed firmly into a harsh line. “Cʼmon,” he tugged his friend, then moved his fingers so that he was holding him instead. “I wanna show you. I wanna be the one to show you.” 

He led him into the bedroom. This time, Gladio didnʼt bother to hide his unease. On his bed was a brown paper envelope, perfectly crisp. 

Gladio handed it to Ignis, who gave him a worried glance before he opened it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. A black-and-white copy of a damning article he found in the library earlier. “Tragedy strikes Kingʼs Shield?” 

“Kingʼs Shield is the name of a manor about a 2-hour ride from here,” Gladio explained. “It used to be full of green stuff so…back in the monarchy, itʼs a good place to sneak some troops in for a siege. My…its original owner built a fort in it to stop these troops and thatʼs how it became known as Kingʼs Shield. Then it was razed…later they built a manor on it. Called Kingʼs Shield.” 

“I see,” Ignis said, nodding. 

“You…” Gladio shook his head, spreading his hand, “donʼt remember anything about it?” 

“N, no,” Ignis stammered, looking at the print-out again. “Iʼm afraid I…” Those green eyes widened. He put his face closer to the paper, gasping eventually, “Itʼs me. This is me!” 

“Yeah.” Gladio nodded, swallowing a rock. 

“They wrote about my death,” Ignis gasped, face falling completely open in shock. “But…a servant…they called me a _servant?!_ ” 

“Ignis—” Gladio reached for him. 

“I wasnʼt a servant!!” Ignis snapped, teeth bared, eyes harsh. “They lied, I was a slave! They enslaved me—!!” 

“Ignis!” Gladio caught him by his biceps, unable to stop himself from approaching the victim. “Ignis, I know! I believe you. Itʼs not your fault they lied.” That silenced him, at least, though he looked rightfully distressed now. The paper between his fists had crumpled in his outburst. “Ignis, listen to me. Thereʼs something I gotta ask you.” He gulped again, his hands were shaking. He wished he could close his eyes or his ears before he spat it out but he couldnʼt do that disservice to Ignis. 

So with what little courage he could muster, he asked him, “Ignis, do you remember the name of your abuser?” 

“My…?” 

“Your master,” Gladio went on, licking his lips. “The guy who bought you and ruined your whole life.” 

“He…” Ignis paused, frowning. “I, I donʼt…” He stopped again, features pinched briefly. “I only recall…Deami.” Gladioʼs heart and spirit sank. That…that was his death sentence. “Lord Deami…thatʼs all I remember.” 

Gladio nodded in understanding. Now everything was clear. No wonder he recognized their family crest in the ball. “The owner…of Kingʼs Shield was Crailas De Amicicia. He was a businessman who died at sea when RV Crepera burned.” 

“So…” Ignisʼ brows tightened. “Was he my…?” 

Gladio nodded again. “We Amicitia…came from the De Amicicia. We _used_ to be called De Amicicia. But…but in four hundred years…and I mean paperwork ainʼt always perfect especially during the war—” 

“Amicitia,” Ignisʼ eyes searched him, both stunned and alive. “De Amicicia…!” Those eyes grew. 

And then Gladio crashed against the wall, pain bursting throughout the span of his back as a wild tempest roared at him. Like a thousand horrible nightmares screaming at him, swearing to come for his soul. Gladio lost every bit of his courage, nearly fainting if not for his muscles writhing in fire. 

“ _You used me!!!_ ” They accused him, full of hate and hurt. “You monster, _you used me!!_ ” 

“Iʼm sorry,” Gladio choked on his tears, turning away from the daemonʼs fury. He was only human, he wasnʼt strong enough to take it. “Iʼm sorry, forgive me!” 

“I should have murdered you!” Ignis blared, his fingers tightening around Gladioʼs shoulders, ready to tear him in two. Gladio gasped for relief. “I cried for you!! But I should have daemonified you instead!!” 

“Please, Ignis, Iʼm really sorry,” Gladio sobbed, shaking his head. “I didnʼt know it was him, I didnʼt know it was me! Iʼm sorry I came from a line of abusers—” 

Ignis yelled at him, a sound that resembled _Liar!!_ The hand on his left shoulder finally came free. Gladio opened his eyes. 

A silver blade, burning in red aura, its tip glinting by the light of his bedroom, was raised over his head. Gladio paled, forgetting how to work his knees. His father Clarus would have been disappointed. Since he was a kid, heʼd been taught to never be still, to be quick on his feet. _Presence of mind_ , he always said. _Master yourself,_ he would also remind him. 

Tonight…tonight, Gladio was trying to do that. The fear of pain, the fear of death, of retribution, he was trying to master them. Gladio choked and sniffed for one last time before he swallowed it all down and turned to face his ender. The rage in those fiery green eyes, the betrayal etched in his features. Four-hundred years, he waited for this moment. For this release, this revenge that was once denied him. 

For all the crimes of the man from whom he benefited, Gladio didnʼt have the heart to stop him. He would be brave just for him, just for his soul. He only wished he could talk to Iris one last time. Or his mother. 

But Ignis didnʼt get a chance to speak to his loved ones, too, before they broke him. With a guttural roar, Ignis struck him with his knife. 

Pain burst upon his chest, muting him in shock. First sharp and then dull. His arm turned rigid and numb momentarily, down to his elbow. Gladio grunted deeply and breathed hard, eyes shut tight. 

Breathed…he was still breathing. 

Gladio opened his eyes and dared to look at his killing blow. The dagger was gone, and all that was there was Ignisʼ fist, powerful but… 

Forgiving? He turned to look at his face, then. 

Nothing would have prepared him for the tears streaming down his cheeks, the shattered look upon his eyes, his gasping mouth. He was shocked, and sad… 

Ignis punched him again, weakly this time though after that first strike, there was enough pain in it to cause Gladio to flinch. Even his grip on his shoulder had slackened but Ignis persisted with his fist. He hit him again, and again, each one becoming faster, harder. 

Wilder until even with all his powers, the daemon couldnʼt seem to hit his mark. And that made him cry out—in anger, in frustration. 

Gladio couldnʼt stop his arms from lashing him to his chest, then, not when Ignisʼ body gave, and the grip around his shoulder shook. His punches persisted but there was hardly any threat in them anymore. 

“Ignis, Iʼm sorry,” Gladio whispered, hugging him tightly, pressing his cheek to his hair, ruining its style. “Iʼm sorry this is how it turned out, Iʼm sorry—” When Ignis let out another cry, he realized at the end that he was asking him _why_. 

“Why does it have to be you?!” was his demand, giving way to the softest whimpers of his heart. “I should hate you…oh gods, I should have murdered you but I canʼt!” Another punch as he tucked his face in Gladioʼs shoulder. “I canʼt because I love you! And you are all that I have and you are all that I want…” His muscular frame began to shake. 

Gladio felt his tears on his shoulder. He had to sniff back his own before he pressed a kiss on the daemonʼs head. “Ardyn was right—what time forgets, the blood doesnʼt…oh, I should hate you!!” He punched him again, grip tightening around the meat of his shoulder. “I should murder you, I should abhor you!!” 

Gladio nodded. “Youʼre right,” he sighed, pulling him closer as if that would repair the twisting of his heart, his hardness of breath. “You’re absolutely right, Ignis.” 

“You lie,” Ignis sobbed. When his weight started to sag, those traitorous knees finally remembered themselves. Slowly, Gladio brought them to the floor, until they were leaning against the corner of the wall and his bed. “Oh how you lie, Gladio!!” he screamed. 

“Iʼm sorry!” 

Ignis cried again, slipping one arm around his neck to hold him closer. “Oh why…Gladio, why?!” _Why_ , he asked him. 

But Gladio shook his head. Whispered, “I donʼt know. Iʼm sorry.” What could he do? 

He was only human.

—

Couldnʼt even remember how he got them into bed. Only somehow, he never let go of him, no matter how many times he hit him. And somehow, morning had come.

And he was still there, buried deeply in his arms. 

Gladio had almost jumped in his surprise, if he hadnʼt been too scared to move. Heʼd never seen Ignis like this, in this light. So so peaceful, a far cry from his square shoulders, the upwards tip of his chin and his lips. And so soft, almost human…if it werenʼt for the veil of smoke rising off his naked skin no matter how Gladio waved it away. And his scar… 

He hissed, feeling a needle through his chest as he brushed it tenderly under his thumb. It looked like an angry beast had scratched him particularly on his left eye. And the fact that this was his own doing did not make it any easier for him to accept the fact that…that it was _there_. That it had to happen… 

His sigh came shakily through gritted teeth, running his thumb over those raised lines. This could have been avoided. If only Ignis hadnʼt been born in the wrong place and the wrong time… 

He stopped when Ignisʼ shoulder moved the slightest. Gladio instantly pulled back, suddenly scared to touch him in such a vulnerable state. Many men have done so baselessly, it had brought him to this kind of life. He couldnʼt do that to him. He held his breath when those brows quirked slightly. Ignis opened his eyes. 

Those green irises, gone. In their place were a pair of milky ones, reminiscent of someone whoʼd gone blind. So even that was a part of his glamor, and under the daylight, he held no power. Even daemons could be like humans, after all… 

Gladio put on a smile for him just in case, and greeted him with the softest, “Hey,” while he tried to remember where he was, what he was doing in his bed. “You feeling better?”

Ignis didnʼt speak. Instead he pushed himself up and off the bed. Turned to the window where the light fell through, even though it wounded him. He should have closed it, he realized. 

“Hey.” Gladio reached up to his shoulder to nudge him back to his side. “Lie down. Youʼll hurt yourself. Iʼll close the curtains.” 

But Ignis only turned to face him, quiet as ever. That hand on his shoulder never left, still there, close enough for Ignis to press his scarred cheek to it. Gladio couldnʼt stop himself from brushing his thumb on the flawed skin. 

And then, in black smoke and red and purple embers, Ignis disappeared.

—

He hadnʼt heard from, or seen Ignis in days since. His bruises had healed significantly but that dining chair next to his computer was still in his bedroom. Waiting. Expecting—like him. Normally, this was where the story ended. The hero remains unmarred and virtuous, and the daemon learns from his evil ways and is banished forever. Then the hero takes his love to the temple and they live happily ever after.

But what if the daemon _was_ the heroʼs love himself? Couldnʼt they have a happily ever after? Figures there were no stories written for them, though… 

“Hey, I found it.” 

Gladio had been waiting for that good news in the dusty library, which would have looked grand if the furniture hadnʼt been shrouded in white drapes and if the books were, well, impressive at all. Save for the rare editions they came in, a lot of the fiction stuff had already fallen into public domain and looked like theyʼd only been collected as a conversation piece. The rest of the books were encyclopedias that shouldnʼt even be around anymore, and business books. Also shouldnʼt be around anymore. 

The man who stepped in the sunny room whistled a sigh of relief as he spun a keychain in his finger. He was younger, skinnier, light-haired but bore the classic Amicitia ambers. Or should he say—De Amicicia ambers. 

“Thought weʼd have to break the door before my dad arrived,” his cousin said, dropping the keys to his palm. “Heʼs on his way, by the way. Sounds like heʼs in a hurry to meet ya.” 

“Sounds like heʼs in a hurry to meet the bottle I brought,” Gladio smirked, following the younger man out of the library. A pair of uniformed maids stepped in after them to pull the curtains and close up whatever else needed to be closed up. “Did he say itʼs okay for me to go alookinʼ while heʼs out?” 

“Yeah, totally.” They came out to the massive receiving hall which was extremely empty except for the drafty smell. With the windows unveiled, though, looking out to the white hot sun, one of the more iconic features of Leideʼs drylands, the dark burnished wood that surrounded them glowed like a new house. 

Still not enough to banish the ghosts of the past. “You know Dad wanted to get rid of this, right?” 

“Oh, yeah?” Gladio whipped to his cousin, eyes round and attentive. He stopped to listen to him. 

“Yeah,” his cousin replied, shifting himself to face him. “I mean sure, there was an ugly fight about who was gonna get this when gramps died but Dad really only fought for it because thatʼs what grandma wanted. After she followed gramps, he started looking for buyers but even with its historical value, nobody wants it.” He gestured to the rest of the house, hidden behind arches and corridors. “Itʼs in the middle of the desert so the upkeep is a pain and the scenery isnʼt nice. Weʼre far enough to lose internet speed but not enough not to see Insomniaʼs skyline through the window. You getting me?” 

“Yeah,” Gladio nodded, bracing his hands on his sides. “I wouldnʼt buy this place either.” 

“Right?” his cousin said. He looked up and pointed at the ceiling. “And then thereʼs this asshole, too. Fucking creepy.” When Gladio turned around, he saw himself gazing up to an image carved into the wood on top of the main archway in the entrance. The crest of House Amicitia. “Seriously, why does it have to be a skeleton? Why couldnʼt it just be like a knight or a real falcon or something?” He wondered if Ignis had those same thoughts whenever he passed under this symbol. 

He wondered what must have been going on in his head all those times. Those thoughts unheard, prayers unanswered. 

_Will I hear you here, Ignis?_ Gladio thought, following his cousin who led him into a wing branching out at the side of the main double doors. _Will I see you? I know I shouldnʼt say this but…I really miss you. I donʼt know if youʼre even still out there but…Iʼm waiting for you. Every night. Iʼm always hoping youʼd just show up like you used to._

Down the end of a corridor with its own set of doors was a tall clock that no longer worked, lined up perfectly to the stretch of carpet that protected the floor. 

A flimsy way to keep a secret—a terrible secret. They flipped it back to reveal a trap door that had gotten loose with age and use, the thought of which only filled Gladioʼs stomach with a cold kind of acid. How many times had it been flipped open and shut? 

“Was this carpet always here?” he asked while they were figuring out which key fit. 

His cousin shrugged. “Probably not? Do carpets survive centuries?” Probably not a normal kind of carpet, if it had to be that old. “Why did you wanna see this place, by the way?” 

“You donʼt?” Gladio passed the question back to him so he could avoid it. 

His cousin pulled his lips down by both corners when he shook his head. “Canʼt say. I asked my Dad about it once and he said it was just full of rooms. It was the servants quarters back in the day.”

“Oh yeah?” Gladio smirked suddenly. “Guess thatʼs where the 12-bedrooms description comes from.” His cousin pulled back his head to laugh heartily. 

When he thought he was going to have to break it, the lock finally came off, and the door opened up, leading into a plain stone stairwell that disappeared in darkness. For the first time ever since, perhaps. Gladio asked for the keys as he lit up his phone. 

“You’re going down?” his cousin gave them to him. 

“Yeah. I mean, itʼs already open.” 

“Wish my cat was like you.” 

“Wish youʼd brought your cat,” Gladio joked back, grinning. “Miss that critter.” With only his device to light his way, then, he started down the forbidden path, sinking deeper into cold, stale air that sent a shiver up his spine. Was it always this cold down here? But seeing that it had been centuries since this was used, and the world back then must not have been reeling with global warming yet… 

He shivered again at the thought of what Ignisʼ life must have been like down there. Was it freezing? How did he keep warm? 

_Ignis…_ Gladio cast his light around the stout walls. There were several sconces that must have been used for torches in the past, and the signal was dead unless he pointed his phone towards the entrance. On each side of the wall were two steel doors with grates on top. They were all empty. 

Well, he was only interested in one, anyway. So he inspected the handles, comparing the paint job. If his ancestor had abused Ignis for himself and his friends, then… 

_It must be this one,_ he thought, slipping his phone into his jeans pocket so he could search the right key with the light. He found several that looked ancient enough to belong to that kind of room and tried them. 

It took him four attempts before he got it right, hooking the heavy lock onto the sling of his belt and then, taking a deep breath, forced the heavy steel door open with a careful push. It cringed at the lack of oil, then groaned the rest of the way to the wall until it stopped. Gladio flashed the light over the room. 

He…didnʼt know what he was looking at. Across him was a narrow pallet attached to the wall by two chains at the head and the foot. There was a hole at one corner of the floor where presumably Ignis relieved himself and then… 

And then that was it. The place was dark, the ceiling was low enough for him to be able to scrape at it with his fingers and the sides…

He put his phone back in his pocket as he touched one side of the room with his left hand and with his right, attempted to reach Ignisʼ with no success. But if he tipped his weight a little, just for about a couple of inches… 

His hand touched the wall. He realized, then…and he wondered, had Ignis touched the same surface in the past? Clawed on it, punched it? Cried into it? 

Gladio gasped out when he felt a pain in his heart, like his chest was trying to crush it in. His eyes felt damp when he searched the wall for any more signs of Ignisʼ existence and struggle, tried to feel for them. The concrete was rough and he doubted anything short of a knife could leave a scratch on it. 

But he found one, on the side of a pallet. Like the writing of a man who was just learning to hold a scalpel to do it. The lines were harsh, misshaping letters. And it looked like theyʼd been carved over again and again. Just enough to tell the world that forsook him that:

_I AM IGNIS STUPEO SCIENTIA_

A desperate cry for the dignity they took from him? For a voice that could be heard? 

Gladio started to sob, the sounds he made coming from deep within his chest as he felt his name under the pad of his thumb. He heard him. He heard him loud and clear. 

But he was 400 years too late.

—

He didnʼt know how long he spent in the dark, in the past. There was another door leading to another basement that looked similar to the one they kept Ignis in, but the rooms it carried were different…much too different. There was a wine cellar behind one door, an attic full of old furniture and picture frames about as big as him behind another.

And then a strange room…with handcuffs on the walls…and on the other side a collection of whips—

He couldnʼt stay for long. Left the door open as he made his way out. 

By the time he came up, his uncle had finally arrived, and they tipped their heads eagerly to each (mostly because the uncle was the eager party) while his cousin locked up the trap door. His uncle led him to one of the washrooms with water so he could clean up. 

“So how was your visit?” he asked his nephew, hooking his thumbs to his pantsʼ pockets while Gladio wiped his face and his arms dry on the towel. “Honestly, I was surprised to hear you were dropping by. Technically, you shouldnʼt even be dropping by, this house belongs to you. About the only thing we inherited from it was the correct spelling of the name.” He laughed. 

“Yeah, well I owe you one for hanging onto it.” Gladio handed the towel to one of the uniformed servants waiting on him. With that out of the way, he could finally get down to the business of why he was here. He parked his hands on his sides when he asked, “You got a buyer for this place yet?”

—

That question would come to bite him in the ass in the next few days.

Gladio had been directing his last fight scene for the movie when the angriest, “ _Amicitia!_ ” had completely ruined everything they had prepared for. 

For whatever it was worth, at least, every one of them was a professional that had handled this kind of interruption at least once in their careers. Fans, activists, children who wanted their mother to wave at them while they were filming… 

Angry businessmen marching past their flimsy barricade, trodding on grass, while his bodyguards kept his pursuers at bay. 

Gladio sighed. He couldnʼt say he was surprised to be getting this kind of attention from his family but on the last day of his shooting? Really? 

He approached him, catching their livid director by her shoulders before she attacked this powerful person. “Let me take care of this. Sorry for the interruption.” He apologized to the other members of their hard-working crew as well as he left her with her wife. 

Finally, he caught his cousin, another one from his wide network of them, laying an easy hand on his shoulder and his chest. “Hey, hey, hey, take it easy. Want some coffee? Letʼs talk about this somewhere else.” He patted him chummily. 

“Donʼt touch me—donʼt _fucking_ touch me!!” 

Gladio pulled his hands and stepped back from his cousin when he started to fight him off. 

He righted his necktie and his suit jacket, then, and waved an accusing finger at Gladio. “Youʼre a thief, do you know that? What were you thinking selling the manor?!” 

“Look,” Gladio began calmly, hands still up and ready to defend himself from his furious relative. “I asked to buy it and Uncle Basil agreed. The dealʼs good, we got the paperwork to prove it.” 

“ _I donʼt care!!_ ” 

“Should have bought it while you still had the chance, then.” Gladio shrugged. “Now that itʼs mine, though, I could do with it what I want.” 

“Yes, and thanks to you, Kingʼs Shield is gone forever!” he snarled, lips peeled back in utmost rage. “They demolished it to the ground, theyʼre auctioning all the other things in it!!” 

“Yeah, I asked them to do it.” 

“Why?!” his cousin growled, raking his dark hair up. “That was our identity, that was where our line started!!” Was it? Maybe. A generation of rich men and women, all hailing from a line of abusers. Even Gladio had benefited from their cruelty and deceit. He couldnʼt do anything about that now. 

But, some parts of his identity, he could work on at least. “You sure youʼre just concerned about losing our identity or did you want that piece of land for yourself?” Gauging from the stunned look his cousin gave him, that was probably not the best way to settle this.

—

“I donʼt get it, though!” Prompto complained as he turned the wheel towards the corner leading into Gladioʼs house. “If youʼre so good at self-defense, whyʼd you let him punch you?” He tossed his hand to the radio in his car. “Even the evening showʼs talking about you now!”

“Yeah.” Gladio grinned, an ice pack on his lips. “Least theyʼre not talkinʼ about how I beat the guy up. Look, I know Iʼm not into the whole wealthy sphere my family is in but I learned a thing or two for myself.” He gestured to Prompto. “Since he attacked me, heʼs now liable for assault. And since I never touched him, thereʼs nothing his lawyers can do to me.” 

“Hmm…it all does check off but Gladdy,” Iris turned to look at him from the passengerʼs seat, “you could have avoided all that. Youʼre just fresh off an accident and now youʼre sporting another injury!” 

“Iris,” he shook his head, “I wouldnʼt have let him punch me if I knew I couldnʼt take it.” 

“Why did you have to dip your foot in that manor business, anyway? You know itʼs a hot topic!” He didnʼt. But he figured it would be. 

That was why he moved without consulting anyone. He just wanted to get rid of that place as soon as possible. “Hey, at least it wonʼt be a waste of space now, yeah?” Gladio reached to clap her on her arm, as a way of soothing her. “Donʼt worry, Iris. I got this.” At least his lawyers did. 

They stopped at the front of his door. Gladio thanked Prompto as always for being the designated driver before he stepped inside his house, locking up behind him. The place was dark, as always, so he switched on the lights. 

It wasnʼt until he was climbing up the steps to his room that he realized that the lights up there had already been switched on ahead of him. Gladio felt his heart in his throat. No sensible burglar would bother with the lights and he knew he didnʼt leave anything on when he left for the day. He hurried up the stairwell, then, ice pack forgotten, the name betraying his feelings as he dropped his bag to the floor and called out, “Ignis?!” 

Should he have been surprised to see him? Maybe…or maybe not, it depended on the state of things. But when he saw him leaning over his laptop like normal, Gladio had to catch himself on the doorway, scared that he might scare him away. But he was there, he really was _right_ there! Not banished. 

“Ignis?” he gasped, smiling at his presence. Finally, his friend straightened up to face him. 

His left eye was fused shut by the gash, and Gladio could see now where he had a few nicks on his brows and his nose and his lips. With his white eye looking back to him, that was when he remembered that the man he had been wishing for all this time was a daemon.


	8. Chapter 8

“You know, for a guy whoʼs supposedly good at martial arts, he sure likes to get beaten up a lot. First that cut on his face, now a busted lip…” 

If Noctis was trying to get him to say anything, Ignis didnʼt know what it was. Which was to say that he did. He just…he just didnʼt want to express it. 

“The way the guy was going at him, though, Iʼm kinda impressed he didnʼt get off worse. He was just rolling from his punches like he didnʼt wanna hit him.” 

Of course he didnʼt. Gladio wouldnʼt. Gladio would never. He would much rather die than to defend his forefather. To face his death as bravely as his weak human heart could without making excuses. And then to still have enough compassion to comfort him when his very spirit was in burning pain. 

Why else had Ignis avoided him, all this time? He loved him—after all that he learned, he still loved him. And it messed him up. Daemons were not born for this, _only human_ was an excuse he had traded for an eternal life bent on revenge. 

He closed his eyes. Facing the wall, Ignis pretended he was alone in his bed and that the grim reaper wasnʼt sitting behind him. He reached out to Gladio, using his imprint to locate him in the living world, the way he always had even these past few days. He was still at work, getting treated by a medical personnel. 

“Smart move, though. Avoids a lot of legal complications,” Noctis went on. “I mean, heʼs probably neck deep in family drama with that stint he pulled but I guess thatʼs part of being a worldly being. Did you know about that?” 

“I am aware,” Ignis replied. The first time he had spoken after crying his soul out, the day he returned to Inferno. He shut his eyes, as if pretending to be asleep to escape this conversation. 

“At least youʼre talking to me now,” Noctis said. “Anyway, you still wonʼt go to him?” 

“Whatʼs the use?” Ignis mumbled, dejected. “I cannot kill him, anyway. I cannot bear to witness his demise.” 

“You might if you keep this up.” 

Ignis opened his eyes to that. The thought hadnʼt occurred to him. 

He pushed himself finally to his elbows and turned to face Noctis with a frown. 

Noctis paused briefly from whatever he was doing on his phone to glance at him. “Did you forget that humans can be overdramatic? Remember that story about a guy who poisoned himself ‘cause he thought his girlfriend was dead but actually, she was just sleeping?”

—

He did. Of course he did. He was human once and had heard that story many times over. It seemed ridiculous to think that Gladio would take the same route just because they hadnʼt seen each other in what would have been days for him now. But what if he was the kind of character? What if the days had gone on for too long for the human and he…?

The house was still dark, and empty when he arrived at his room. 

It was a strange kind of comfort, to be back in the place where he was happy, and to be grateful that the man who made him happy wasnʼt yet there. Despite that, he switched on the lights of the second floor, just so he could tell Gladio that he was home. 

How hilariously human of him. 

He went around his room briefly, tossing empty cups of noodles to the bin, straightening up shirts and pants slung here and there, his bed… 

His pillow, he brought to his nose to remember his scent. His shampoo, the oil in his scalp… 

It was hilarious, how much it took from him to just put it down, pull his fingers away from its softness. 

Back again in the room as he breathed in deeply, still looking around, trying to disconnect himself from the one who slept in it. All those nights he spent laying down beside him, just watching his face, listening to his breath, sometimes his purrs. Or sitting next to him, helping him with his thesis. The first excuse to bring himself close to him. 

He stopped by his computer table, shocked to see a piece of his past on it. Something cut out from the wood on which he spent many nightmares, dreaming of freedom.

He picked it up, running his finger on its rough surface. He could almost remember the pressure in his own wrist when he read the words heʼd carved into its face:

 _I AM IGNIS STUPEO SCIENTIA_

What was he thinking when he scratched this into being? Did he think it would save him? Did he hope it would make him stronger? 

Ignis didnʼt know. He put it back on the table and took the mouse, shook it to rouse the laptop. Weeks of being Gladioʼs most trusted partner had earned him his own access into the machine. He typed in his password, then. 

Almost jumped out of his spirit at the image that he saw on the screen—of an old mansion, wrought in wood, standing proudly in the middle of a desert. Surrounded by men in blue uniforms and yellow helmets, pointing and gazing up at it…these things, they were unfamiliar. But the house, its spires, the color of its wall. 

As he scrolled down the rest of the email, he became a witness to his own dungeonʼs destruction. What used to be so proud and tall, imposing, had fallen under a massive claw that swept at it like a beast. 

It was all timber now, and concrete. A wasted shell of what it used to be. The rest of the work will continue in the next few days, the message at the bottom said. 

“Ignis?!” Ignis almost jumped in surprise to hear Gladioʼs voice, his feet racing up the steps. Had he been so engrossed with the pictures that he missed his arrival? Should he run? No. No, he came here for a reason. 

“Ignis?” 

And there he was, so soft and gentle as always. As if they hadnʼt parted in uncertain terms, and the man hadnʼt waited on him for days. Hadnʼt made a sacrifice for himself just to tell Ignis the truth. 

Ignis pulled himself back from the screen, and finally turned to face Gladio, whose smile faltered into an uncertain look. What…what is it—

Ah. His glamor. He didnʼt think he needed it anymore but, of course, human sensibilities can be so fragile—

“Does it hurt?” 

Ignis took a second to register that question, then laughed, as though he had coughed in water before he brought the back of his hand to his cheek. _Does it hurt?_ Of course. Why else would Gladio be so concerned? As if _he_ wasnʼt the one who was attacked just now. 

“Itʼs a scar, Gladio,” he reminded him, putting his hand down. “And also itʼs been 400 years. And Iʼm no longer human.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Gladio scratched his head. 

It made Ignis smile, even though he was wary that he was making things appear…normal for the both of them. 

He turned his attention immediately back to the screen. Tossed his hand to it. “I see youʼve been busy.” He knew heʼd been busy, had followed him everywhere through their imprint. Had known that he had visited…his own hell from the past. 

Still, Gladio marched for his laptop, brows curled in intrigue, and then he started, “Shit, sorry,” and put his hand at the top to fold it, “You werenʼt supposed to see that.” 

“Why not?” Ignis stopped him, though he didnʼt move from where he stood. “Is it wrong for me to see the end of my suffering?” 

Gladioʼs head sank low, then he looked at him past his shoulder. “‘cause I donʼt want you to remember any of the horrible things that happened to you.” His sweet Gladio. 

Ignis smiled. “Then youʼre too late. I have been following your progress.” 

Gladio stared at him in shock, standing up suddenly. Ignis stepped back to give them both some space, bringing him back to the center of the room. “Y…youʼve been with me all this time?” 

“Yes,” Ignis revealed, watching him approach. “Itʼs a little thing we call…an imprint. Like a tracker. That night I kissed you, that wasnʼt just a parting gift.” 

“Th, then…” Gladio frowned, clearly unfazed by his suspicious methods. How close have they both come that he was no longer threatening to call the cops and exorcists on him? “W, why…? If you knew where I was—”

“You think I can still face you?” Ignis laughed weakly, spirits heavy. If only this was just as simple as a break-up. Where after some time off, they could meet again and talk things out. 

He turned to his shoes, letting out a small huff. As if to send a prayer to the gods before he began, “Gladio. There is something else I havenʼt told you about.” 

“What is it?” Whispered after a pause. 

Ignis tried a smile on his face before he raised it to the mortal. “The reason…why I came to you…I said it was because I wanted to make it up to you by helping with your thesis.” He shook his head. “But that was a lie. The reason…the real reason why I came to you was because I was sent to kill you.” 

“What?” Gladio looked stunned. As he should be. 

Ignis smiled wider for that. “Indeed. Exactly what I told Adagium…my master, when he sent me to you. You see, daemons such as I, we exist to punish those who are wicked. Murderers, abusers…those who think theyʼd escaped retribution. For which, you,” he gestured to him, “are not one of. But he told me…that what time forgot, the blood didnʼt.” 

“Blood,” Gladio repeated, recognition riding his brows. “You mean…my ancestor. De Amicicia.”

“Precisely,” Ignis confirmed. “He knew who you were even before I did, he offered you to me as a gift, so I could sate my vengeance on your bloodline. But,” he laughed again, the sadness of their circumstances weighing down on his smile, “but my plan failed. And I thought I could befriend you and lure you into a trap but, in the end, I was a fool.” He laughed on, forcing his smile wider. 

“I fell for you,” Ignis revealed to him. “After what Iʼve been through…after all that I saw from my victims, I thought surely there was no way a human could be so kind, so wonderful. And then I met you. And my world was completely shattered by your affections for me.” 

“Then…” Gladio sputtered, frowning in confusion. “W, what does that mean…?” 

“It means I can no longer kill you,” Ignis said. “I would much rather I disappear than to see you dead.” 

“Ignis!” Gladio stomped towards him and grasped him fiercely by his biceps. 

“This is what I came here to tell you.” Being this close to the human, Ignis could feel his resolve chipping slowly, bringing fresh tears to his eyes. “We cannot be together, Gladio. There cannot be an ‘usʼ.” 

“Says who?” Gladio growled, baring his teeth. “Iʼll fight them all! Ignis, youʼve suffered more than enough, they shouldnʼt make you suffer any longer!” 

“But this is how it is!” Ignis told him. “I cannot kill you, and I can no longer fathom this kind of life. A daemon who cannot do as he was bade has no place in any realm. If _I_ wish to stay, then I must kill you but I cannot bring myself to do that anymore!” 

“Then just stay with me and forget about it all!” 

“Would that it were that easy.” Ignis was just laughing at himself now, grinning through his poor fate. “Would that my existence wasnʼt tied to my purpose.” 

“What do I have to do?” Gladio asked, amber eyes searching his face for the answer. “Tell me. D, do I have to make a sacrifice? Do I have to pray to someone?” 

Ignis shook his head, lifting his fingers to comb through his hair. “Let me save you. Allow me to do this for you, please.” 

“Ignis, you donʼt _have_ to do that! Iʼm already—” They would fight forever. He would not give up—not his Gladio. 

So Ignis silenced him with a kiss, holding onto him even though it took Gladio by surprise and his arms were torn between pulling him closer or doing nothing. Whatever. It didnʼt matter. 

As soon as the spell was cast, Gladioʼs knees gave and Ignis had to catch him before he broke his nose in the fall. For a human, he was quite heavyset. 

But Ignis was a daemon, and he had enough physical power to lift the man onto his arms and put him down his bed. Even in his sleep, he mumbled his name like a plea. “Ignis…”

 _May you never forget me, Gladio,_ Ignis prayed to him, kneeling at his side to gaze at his lovely features…for one last time. _May you never forget the daemon who loved you, and who you saved. If only I could be reborn into a human, I will seek you out in my next life. But then…_ He got up. 

And with a wave, summoned a portal to Inferno. To the last part of his weary existence. _But this is the price I paid, to live long enough to meet you._

—

It was a short trip to his destination as soon as he had stepped through the portal. Past the desperate screams of the wicked souls being punished for their misdeeds, the lamia hurrying to her desk to welcome him…

He ignored them. Made his way straight to the lift and punched the button to the top. He couldnʼt count the number of times he had gone that way in his 400 years of being at his beck and call. 

_So, this is how it ends,_ he thought to himself as he passed the doors and welcomed himself to the ruined throne room. Adagium was there, just as he expected. 

He smiled at him, that sick smile bleeding black with a curse. “You rang?” he asked. 

Ignis betrayed nothing of his reason. From behind his forearm, he summoned his dagger.

—

And just like that, night had fallen again. When the day seemed so long while Gladio spent it in bed, turning and twisting, wondering endlessly about Ignis. He couldnʼt remember what happened before he left—one minute, he was kissing him, another, it was morning.

Another sigh escaped Gladio. Tonight was supposed to have been a fun one, it was his farewell dinner with the filming crew. Instead, what was he doing? 

Bailing from the merriment, using his thesis as an excuse…and walking home just because he didnʼt feel like being with anyone tonight. 

Gladio exhaled yet again, turning his eyes to the moon, big and round and clear. He thought suddenly about that time he brought Ignis to watch the meteor shower with him. 

_You seeing this, Ignis?_ he asked his…special friend in his head. _You walking with me? Itʼs a great night out to—_

The screaming sounded like a hundred shrill sirens blaring down the street all at once, the only thing he could hear in the midst of a roar of flames that flushed his entire world in red. _Somethingʼs burning!_ was the first thing he thought to himself. 

And then, that voice: “ _Gladio!!_ ” 

Gladio whipped around to the fire, then, to search for him. He would have already cried his name back if he hadnʼt seen him first: naked except for the bruises and the bleeding cuts that littered his skin. And the black tears streaming down his sightless eyes and the chains around his neck and his wrists, connecting him to—

“ _No!!_ ” Gladio dashed for him, nerves ringing, diving straight into the fire. He didnʼt care which fucker had him this time, he would—

“So, this is your champion?” 

A blast of wind knocked him off his feet. Gladio crashed with a great cry on the pavement, pain ready to choke him but not before he choked it down. 

Brought himself back to his knees to glare at the bastard. He was a tall man, with all these confusing layers on him. Hair the color of wine, eyes as dark and strange as the ink that painted tears on his face. A daemon. 

_The_ daemon? Gladio thought he must have felt something rising to his throat but he couldnʼt tell what it was. Was it awestruck fear? Or bile rising in disgust and hatred? Who did this monster think he was, strutting like he owned the place? And Ignis…! 

How dare he…?!

“ _Hey!_ ” he barked at him, coming up to his feet. Head daemon or not, fuck this bastard, he wasnʼt going down without a fight for him and Ignis! “Is that all you do?! Push everyone around ya? Let him go and letʼs settle this like a man, you and I!!” 

“Gladio!” Ignis wailed for him on his knees, shaking his head. “Gladio, donʼt…please donʼt, heʼs too powerful—” A tight cry erupted from him when his master yanked him forward as he marched. He would scrape his knees even when he tried to catch up. This bastard—!! 

“Ignis, Iʼm gonna get you outta here,” Gladio promised him, reaching for him in the absence of true comfort. “Okay? Iʼm gonna put this guy back in his place!” 

“My, arenʼt we strong and brave for a mortal?” Adagium cackled, bearing black-stained teeth. He shouldnʼt be here, this shouldnʼt be happening. “Do you really think you can take the _heat?_ ” The world turned white on his command, roaring wildly with abandon. 

It was all Gladio could do to stay on his feet, let out his terror in a great wail while he turned away from the fire, hiding himself behind his arms. When the dark returned, he brought himself back to the laughing daemon who filled the night with his voice. Fuck, what was he going to do? Heʼd never been taught to deal with daemons, much less the master of them all! 

“My, my, Ignis,” Adagium turned to the man whose chains he held by his fist. “This little oneʼs quite fearless for a bag of flesh, all right!” 

“Please,” Ignis begged him in tears, shaking his head. He was so small, he wouldnʼt even fight free from his cuffs…was this how they broke him in the past? “Please, Master. I beg of you, no more…no more!! Iʼll never disobey you again so please!” 

“Were you the one who taught this little maggot how to fight back?” Adagium sneered, jerking at Ignisʼ chains again until he cried, nearly falling flat to the concrete of not for his restraints. He was hurting him on purpose. 

“Fucking stop that!” Gladio barked, forcing down the sting in his chest. He had to think clearly. 

“Do you know what this imbecile tried to do to me?” Adagium grinned at him. “He tried to _kill_ me! Imagine that!” 

“Master, please,” Ignis tried again desperately, shaking his head, “no more…” That was all he could say. How low was he brought? 

“Do you know that in 4 centuries, heʼs never tried to bite the hand that fed him…until now?!” 

“Yeah?!” Gladio spat back, taking a brave step forward. His heart was racing like a train in his chest but he wouldnʼt stop it. Wouldnʼt let it stop him either. “Canʼt blame him if the guyʼs too smart for ya!”

“Gladio!!” There was fear in his voice when Ignis yelled out his name. 

How could he tell him that things were going to be okay? When he didnʼt know if they would be either? He just needed to get him out, that was all he could think of. “Master of darkness but what do you got?” Gladio tossed his hand to him. “Some bargain costume, some cheap special effects? Iʼve directed scenes with bigger budget than you!!” What the fuck was he saying? Whatever it was, it made the monster laugh out loud. 

“Iʼm never gonna get scared of you,” he swore, taking another step forward. That was probably a lie, he thought, but Gladio had always been good at focusing on what was important. And right now, that was Ignis. Nothing else mattered until he could get Ignis out of his chains. How many more times does he have to be in them? “You’re never gonna scare me outta here!” 

“To be fair, I was thinking of killing you.” 

“Oh yeah?” Fuck this guy. Gladio raised his arms and his voice, pouring out the fear that was building up inside him. “Well, guess whoʼs still alive, fucker!” He hoped he didnʼt shake. He took another step forward. “I promised Ignis I was gonna protect him,” he said, then shook his head. “And no bully is gonna change that.” 

“Please, Gladio, just run away!” Ignis wailed. 

“A mortal protecting a daemon?” Adagium flashed that manic grin again. “And what are you going to do, talk me to boredom? Punch me with your fleshy fist?” What could he do? Ignis was already stronger than him, how much larger was the power imbalance between him and this daemon? A fight was not the solution, then, though everything else put Gladio at a disadvantage. 

But what could he do? Ignis was suffering and heʼd never be able to live with himself if he left him that way much longer. How could he win his freedom? How could he… 

Negotiate…? 

Gladioʼs eyes widened at the thought. And before he could stop himself, he turned from the weakened Ignis to the beast that bound him. “Iʼll do you one better—Iʼll trade him.” 

“No,” Ignis gasped, his chains rattling. Adagiumʼs own eyes seemed to grow, gold irises glimmering, then squint with his smile in interest. “ _No!!_ Gladio, take it back!!” 

“You want a bigger monster?” Gladio thumped his hands to his chest, moving much closer to the daemons. “You got ‘im right here. I come from a line of powerful men who did everything they wanted just to stay on top. Sounds like thatʼs right up your alley, right?” The words were coming so smoothly, he couldnʼt catch them. 

Oh gods, what was he saying? 

“Iʼm familiar with your history. De Amicicia?” Already, Adagium was wearing a victorious smirk. Fuck, what had he done? 

Was this really all happening? Gladio had read stories about characters and real people selling their possessions to the daemons, of course, but this never took after that template. So, had he…did he just…? 

“Ignis.” He turned to him. Oh gods, he was running out of time. Ignis shook his head rapidly. “No, Ignis, listen to me. Tell Iris that I Iove her.” 

“No,” Ignis snarled, trying to crawl closer to him until his master— _former_ master?—pulled him back away. “No, you tell her yourself, donʼt do this to yourself!!”

“Hey, donʼt you remember what I said?” Gladio surprised himself when his smirk came easily to his face. Even though the heat was astounding, and he was feeling very light-headed, standing so close to it. “Youʼve suffered long enough. And the bastards who hurt you, Iʼm gonna fight ‘em all. But,” he spread his hands, “Iʼm only human right now.” 

“Then _stay_ human!” Ignis wept, pulling at his chains. “Please, Gladio, donʼt do this!!” 

“Ignis, I gotta do this,” Gladio said, trying to be brave for all that his knees were ready to collapse. If this was going to be the last time he and Ignis would see each other, then he at least wanted to be remembered brave. “Let me save you.” 

“Why?” Ignis whispered. “ _I_ was going to save _you_.”

“‘cause I promised, didnʼt I?” Gladio tried to pretend he wasnʼt shaking. “And…this is all I can think of to protect you. Iʼm sorry. And thanks. For waiting all this time so we could meet.” He smiled. “You have no idea how special those nights we spent were. To me.” So. Those were his last words. 

It would have to do—white hot iron kissed the skin of his throat without even a breathʼs warning. He would have howled in pain if he had any voice left, or if he wasnʼt being choked by the metal as he shook in blinding pain. 

On his knees, hands heavy with the chains that had once held Ignisʼ wrists captive. Ignis… 

How was he? Gladio turned back over his shoulder to search for him. 

Found him on his knees, green eyes wide with shock as he witnessed his freedom. And Gladioʼs enslavement. So this was it.

At least, in the end, he really could protect him. “I love you,” he whispered to him. Before the end of everything. 

And then he drowned in a sea of fire, and blacked out.

—

When he came to, the first thing he noted was the scent of the breeze, bringing with it the fragrance of trees and raw earth. It was a bright night out, with a full moon up top, barely hidden behind the eaves of a tree.

 _Strange,_ he thought, exploring the skies. _Thought hell would look more hellish?_ It took him a little longer to realize that he was lying down on something. 

Some _one_. 

“Slept well, Gladio?” Ignis smiled, green eyes twinkling in the light. _Ignis—_

Gladio sprung up in an instant, choking in his shock before he managed to sputter out his name in bits and pieces. “You’re okay?” he gasped, cupping his face in his hands and brushing his left cheek with his thumb. His skin felt smooth. And Ignis looked about as cheerful as he usually was in the nights before. “Are you okay? Are you…are you hurt?”

“No more than you, Gladio,” Ignis assured him, taking his hands to bring them down to his lap. “I must say, you had him thoroughly impressed by your performance.” 

“Who?” Gladio wrinkled his brows. He turned when Ignis pointed behind him. 

Adagium sat there, on the other side of the bench. Slumped low like a homeless, looking decidedly more human as he waved to him and sung out, “Good evening!” Adagium… _the master of daemons—_

Gladio cursed between his teeth when he brought his back to Ignis, spreading his arms to protect him. What the hell was this? Hadnʼt they already agreed to trade?! 

“You know, I actually thought you were just pretending,” Adagium began, resting his elbows on the back of the bench. “You know how it is with us men and courting. But then, one of my smartest daemons came home quite smitten with you! And then I thought…why, thatʼs never happened before. Especially considering heʼs about as bitter as he is smart.” 

“Ardyn,” Ignis sighed. 

“So I said to him,” Adagium went on, anyway, shrugging high, “are you sure? Why not put him to the test? So we did. And you,” he pointed at Gladio, “are either the most sincere human being to have ever been reborn on this side of the world, or the stupidest idiot to have the misfortune of being born at all.” 

“Wh, what do you mean?” Gladioʼs tongue stumbled with him while he tried to come to grips with this new development. “Test? That was…” So the cheap special effects, the budget costume… “That was a test?” He turned to Ignis over his shoulder who only smiled at him and combed his fingers through his hair. “He didnʼt hurt you?” 

“He wouldnʼt dare,” he told him.

“B, but…” Gladio jutted his thumb to the daemon on the other side. “H, he said you tried to kill him…?” 

“Ah,” Ignis nudged his glasses back, “Indeed. Well, see…”

—

“You rang?”

Perhaps if he had a more nefarious purpose in that room, that mad smile, that strange sparkle in his black eyes would have discouraged Ignis from pursuing it any further. But it wasnʼt like heʼd come up all the way here just to commit something so asinine as a treason or whatever. 

So he tightened his grasp around his summoned blade and tilted his chin higher. 

And then, once he was close enough to the loaded table, he finally revealed his weapon and slammed it down on Ardynʼs desktop, hilt to his master. Ardyn jumped back in surprise, pulling his hands back as if before he could accidentally cut himself. 

“Iʼm afraid,” Ignis sighed, taking two steps back, “after 400 years of service, I must tender my resignation.” 

“With this?” Ardyn gestured to the knife like it was some lab specimen he wouldnʼt deign to touch. 

“Indeed,” Ignis confirmed with an arrogant nod. “I thank you for the opportunity you gave me to satisfy my revenge but Iʼm afraid it is time for me to seek greener pastures.” Or blacker? Depending on what the void looked like. Or ‘looked likeʼ. Ignis was so out of his depth that he didnʼt even know what his next few moments would look like. But he steeled himself, puffed up his chest and squeezed his fingers in his fist. He wouldnʼt do this if it wasnʼt important. 

“But…” An expert in avoiding legal complications, Ardyn used some other document to pick up the knife by the handle. “This is a knife. And we donʼt even have an HR. I know thatʼs on me but,” those dark eyes looked at him, “you do realize this is not standard procedure?” 

“What happened to me,” Ignis breathed, “was anything _but_ standard procedure, Ardyn.” 

Ardyn waved his hand to him, bidding him to continue. 

“I fell in love with my mark,” Ignis explained. He knew he didnʼt have to, he knew Ardyn knew everything, had even visited him as a nightmare in Gladioʼs apartment, but then he figured he owed his employer this much. “I should thank you for helping me find my most abhorred abuser but, perhaps for my own lack, he completely blinded me with his compassion and sincerity and,” he tossed his hand, “and now I canʼt kill him. And a daemon who cannot do his task…”

“Will face the void.” 

“Yes,” Ignis whispered, voice small. “Exactly so.” Hence the knife. 

Ardyn gazed at the blade he held. He put it down easily. “Tell me, do you really think this man is worth it?” 

Ignis shook his head. “Iʼm afraid I am the wrong person to ask this. I will tell you that he is but you know now that I am biased.” 

“Ah,” Ardyn grinned, leaning back to his throne, “always so logical, Ignis. So I guess weʼll just have to find out, hm?”

“Are you going to go to him?” Ignis gasped, chest tight. He couldnʼt let him touch him, that wasnʼt why he wanted to consign himself to the void. 

“No.” Ardyn pointed to the both of them in turns “ _We_ are going to go to him. And we are going to put him to the test.” 

“A test,” Ignis repeated, though he was starting to see his point. 

“Iʼve been following you around,” Ardyn shrugged, “obviously. You have revealed your whole story to him and he claims that he no longer wishes for you to suffer. So letʼs do that.” He grinned. “Like our own masquerade ball.” 

Ignis crossed his arms, brows low, willing for him to go on. 

“Weʼll go to him as the classic,” he spread his arms, “master and slave. Letʼs say you tried to kill me,” he gestured to the knife, “and I won, so I punish you and put you in chains. Youʼll be naked,” he pointed to him, “for effect.” 

“You do realize this could be triggering for me?” 

“A small sacrifice to see if heʼs worth _your_ sacrifice,” Ardyn assured him with a smile. “If he runs away, then you must finish the job and slay him by any means necessary. If your weak, vulnerable form somehow,” from his chest he made a gesture of bringing out something, “ _awakens_ a deep-seated lust for power and domination, then I think youʼll know what to do. But, if he proves himself to be worthy of all this?” He spread his hands again. “Iʼll let you both live.” _Both of them._

Ignis stared at him in incredulity and wonder. “How so very generous of you, Ardyn.” 

“I know, right?” He beamed, proud of himself. 

“But Iʼm afraid you misunderstand,” Ignis continued, gesturing to his throne room aglow with some eternal fire. “Even if we should both survive the test, I can no longer proceed as is.” He touched his chest. “My reason for being is revenge. And now it has been stifled and I no longer want for anything but him. I cannot be your loyal daemon anymore.” 

“Well, weʼre not exactly _living_ as we are, Ignis,” Ardyn reminded him, brow peaking. “So I canʼt make you _live on_ like this. So instead…” He passed the cue back to Ignis. So instead… 

How else could he live…if not—

“Youʼll turn me into a human being,” Ignis gasped, feeling winded just by the offer alone. The chance to live with Gladio _for good_. Or how so ever long they could have. 

“Call it your retirement package,” Ardyn said. “Four-hundred years is a good run.” 

“But w,” Ignis gestured to his knife, “what happened to the void? If the other daemons find out about this—” 

“Theyʼll be too scared and meek to rise up to me, anyway.” Ardyn shrugged. “Or too satisfied with the power in their hands for the glory of being mortal. Besides, do you know what will happen to me if I sent you to the void?” 

Ignis shook his head. 

“I will have to do,” on one of his paper towers, he added about 2 inches at the top with his fingers, “this much paperwork on the matter. Which, as you can see, I will never be able to accomplish in this eternity or the next.” He wove his fingers together on his tummy. “Itʼs a check and balance I share with the Astral Plane. Just to make sure we donʼt have too much fun with the void.” 

“But will they just let you bypass the rebirth procedure just for me?” 

“Well, no,” Ardyn admitted. Ignisʼ hope started to sink— “But,” he raised his finger, “theyʼre too busy up there to look at whatʼs happening under the table that theyʼll only find out once youʼre dead. Then theyʼll call me into question and Iʼll be like,” brows tight, he gesticulated, “oh you see, blah, blah, blah…then theyʼll look at your deeds and,” Ardyn pushed himself back up to a more becoming posture, “as long as you donʼt overstep yourself, youʼre home free to your next life. Now that,” he patted his pile of work, “is much easier than this.” A shortcut to get his fate out of his hair. So was it possible? 

Was it really, really…? “Are you certain they wouldnʼt have plugged this loophole by now?” Ignis wanted to be sure of this ticket before he started pinning his hopes on anything again. 

“If no one talks.” Ardyn smiled. “Well, do we have a deal?” He leaned forward, then, putting out his hand for a sealing shake. This…this was exactly the scenario that happened in this same room all those centuries ago. But this time… 

This time, he was giving his soul back.

—

“Then the hero vanquishes the evil, takes his love to the temple,” Ardyn swept his hand to them, “then they live happily ever after.”

“Thatʼs all well and good but I hope you donʼt mind me being suspicious of your actions, Sir.”

“Oh, now itʼs Sir,” Ardyn chuckled, smiling at the night view. “I thought youʼd have learned by now that even daemons are capable of playing it fair.” Not exactly what Gladio was talking about. 

He cocked his brow. “Him, yeah,” he nodded to Ignis beside him, “you, Iʼve only met literally half an hour ago and you didnʼt exactly strike a good first impression, yanno?” 

Ardyn pursed his lips and bounced his head left and right. “You make a fair point.”

“So what is it?” Gladio pressed him, tightening his grip around Ignisʼ fingers. “Whatʼs the catch? Why are you doing this?” There had to be a catch. Even rich men who werenʼt gods had a fine print in their contracts. 

Ardyn smiled at his question. “Hell is full,” he answered simply. He spread his arm to a side. “I have all these souls waiting for work and I finally have an opening. Do you realize not all humans are as brave and chivalrous as you?” 

“So?” Gladio snorted. What the hell was this daemonʼs business, making him blush like that? 

“Iʼm just saying.” Ardyn smiled. “As for the catch…” He shrugged. “Nothing. The catch is that Ignis is now unemployed and he would have to subscribe to mortal means of sustaining himself.”

“Bullshit.” That was hardly a fair trade. Adagium was losing a good daemon here. And he was gaining a boyfriend. 

“Ahhh.” Now he was beaming. Even without the ink stains, he could still make it look disconcerting. “Youʼre talking about firstborn children types of catch, right?” 

Gladioʼs brows flickered. “Y, yeah…I guess.” 

“Iʼve certainly had my fair share of those,” Ardyn revealed. “And they serve as good warnings for ambitious mortals. But darkness,” he sighed, tucking his hands in his elbows to get comfortable, “you know…thereʼs only so many ways we can be evil. Most of the time, itʼs just a normal working day for us. Keeping you mortals in line, queuing up punishments for misbehaviors…” He punched out his arm and looked at his cuffs. Plural. “I have a triage meeting with one of my nephews right about now, actually. About some lawyer who appears to be more trouble than sheʼs worth.”

“Your who now?” Daemons get to have nephews? 

“The high commander of the grim reapers,” Ardyn answered, as if that explained anything. He got up. “Iʼm sure Ignis will tell you all about it.” Well, fine. “Anywhooos,” he sang, pulling his arms up to stretch with a grunt, “if that will be all, I shall now take my leave. Thank you for your exemplary service, I hope you enjoy your stay,” he pointed a warning finger at Ignis, “do be reminded that that imprint is still valid so if you want to be together for eternity, Iʼd take good care of that.”

“Together for eternity?” Gladio jumped and whirled wide eyes to the former daemon. “Is that like…married forever?” 

“After a fashion,” Ignis confirmed with smiling nods. 

“And one last piece of advice,” Ardyn straightened up his topmost coat, “from your former master…and hopefully the last. If I were you, Iʼd make good use of the time I have left. Youʼre like that princess now. Once the clock strikes 12…” He shrugged. 

Ignis bowed. “I will follow your advice. Thank you, again, Your Accursedness.” What a way to be reminded that the guy he was just talking to was the leader of all daemons. 

From the space over his head, in black smoke, Ardyn produced a hat which he swept to his belly as he bowed with a flourish. Then when he got up… 

He was gone. 

And literally everything was back to normal. They must be somewhere in a park, where no one would find them except for whoever was patrolling at this time of the night. How did they get here? And more importantly…was everything that happened really real? 

Gladio turned to look at Ignis, gazing closely at his cheeks and his eyes. “You okay? Do you feel any pain? Do you feel any…” He shook his head. “Anything?” 

“Iʼm okay now,” Ignis assured him, squeezing his hand and patting it where they held it between them. “Iʼm all right.” 

“B, but what was he saying about the time you have left?” Gladio sputtered. Now that he thought about it, that sounded like a threat. “I, is that—” 

“Itʼs when my contract officially expires,” Ignis explained. Or tried to. What contract? But wasnʼt he just let go now? “Gladio…would you like to go to the movies with me tonight?” 

“Uh…” He shrugged. “Sure?” 

“Without…” Ignis grinned suddenly. “Paying for tickets.” Meaning they would either attempt to sneak past the guards or—

Gladioʼs eyes widened. Come to think of it, theyʼd never gone out on a proper date…yet. Well, that was probably because this would literally be the first day of their relationship, the second chapter of their lives together and… 

In any case, why not start it with a safe kind of fun? 

“Yeah!” Gladioʼs voice cracked when he laughed. They nodded eagerly like happy puppies. “Sounds…sounds cool!” 

“Truly?” There was something nervous in Ignis, something giddy. After all those years he suffered… 

He wanted to remember this moment forever. 

Ignis pulled them up to their feet and brought a portal to life in the air. And for the first time, their whole lives, they went through it. Hand in hand. Together.

—

Sunlight streamed through the windows. He must have fallen asleep without remembering to draw the curtains again.

Gladio stirred awake when it hit his eyes. Would have turned his back to it to catch a few more minutes if not for the warm flesh curled up in his arms. 

It was Ignis, still sleeping peacefully and just as naked as a baby. Without his daemon powers, he would have to put on normal clothes like the rest of them now. 

This was his birthday, he realized, running his fingers as gently as he could on his tawny hair. This close to him, he realized he had quite a smattering of moles on his face, too. How adorable. He started to count them. 

Until Ignis stirred, and grunted and opened up his mouth to yawn. Those long arms pulled him in like a pillow as he snuggled deeper. Heʼd never seen him yawn before. 

This was a miracle. “Hey,” Gladio laughed, tracing the shape of his ear as lightly as he could. “Itʼs morning.” Finally. 

Green eyes opened up to see him, and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done~~~ this turned out to be better-received than i thought XDDD thanks for reading "my boyfriend is a daemon" and keep safe!! happy halloween!! o///


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